Medical Schools That Accept SJT Band 4: 2027 Entry

20 Sept

Updated 20 September 2026 using the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) Consortium's preliminary 2026 statistics and medical schools' own published admissions policies.

There's a particular silence that follows opening your UCAT results and seeing Band 4.

You'd braced yourself for a disappointing cognitive score. You hadn't braced yourself for this. And within about four minutes of searching, you'll have found a forum post telling you your application is finished.

So let's be straight with you, because you deserve better than either panic or false comfort.

Band 4 is the hardest UCAT outcome to work around. Roughly sixteen UK medical schools will not consider you, and some of them say so in one blunt sentence. That's a real loss and it's worth being honest about it.

But here is the part the forums leave out: around half of the UK's medical schools will still read your application. Several of the most competitive schools in the country — Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Bristol — don't look at the Situational Judgement Test (SJT) at all. And if you're an international applicant, at least one major medical school explicitly accepts all four bands from you while rejecting Band 4 from Home applicants.

You have four UCAS choices. This article is about spending them well. 👇

🧭 What SJT Band 4 Actually Means

The SJT is the fourth section of the UCAT: 69 questions in 26 minutes, testing judgement rather than knowledge. What would a sensible, professional medical student do when a colleague seems out of their depth, a patient is distressed, or something on the ward doesn't look right?

It's scored differently from everything else. Your three cognitive subtests — Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning — each return a score between 300 and 900, giving a total between 900 and 2,700. The SJT returns a band from 1 to 4 instead, where Band 1 is strongest.

The UCAT Consortium's own wording

It's worth reading these properly rather than skimming, because the difference between Band 3 and Band 4 is where every admissions policy draws its line:

🟢 Band 1 — "an excellent level of performance, showing similar judgement in most cases to the panel of experts"
🟢 Band 2 — "a good, solid level of performance, showing appropriate judgement frequently, with many responses matching model answers"
🟡 Band 3 — "a modest level of performance, with appropriate judgement shown for some questions and substantial differences from ideal responses for others"
🔴 Band 4 — "low, with judgement tending to differ substantially from ideal responses in many cases"

Band 4 is the only band the Consortium describes as low. That's why schools treat it as a hard line rather than a scoring penalty.

How common is Band 4? 📊

The UCAT Consortium's preliminary 2026 statistics, published on 13 September 2026 and drawn from 20,794 completed tests, break down like this:

Band 1: 16%
Band 2: 42%
Band 3: 32%
Band 4: 10%

So roughly one candidate in ten. That's a few thousand students every cycle in exactly your position, and the schools listed below still fill their places from a pool that includes them.

One caveat: these are preliminary figures. The Consortium expected around 22,000 further candidates before testing closed on 24 September 2026, and early testers tend to score slightly better than late ones, so the final percentages will shift a little.

Why one band can decide so much

This catches people out. You could sit the UCAT, score 2,300 on the cognitive sections — comfortably in the top decile nationally — and still be rejected outright by Newcastle, Edinburgh and Queen Mary before a human ever reads your personal statement.

That feels disproportionate, and it is. It's also how these systems work, which is why your school list matters more this year than almost anything else you do. 🎯

🟢 Medical Schools That Accept SJT Band 4 for 2027 Entry

This is the list you came for. Think of it in three groups.

🟢 Group one: the SJT isn't used at all, so Band 4 costs you nothing
🟡 Group two: the SJT is used, but no band is excluded, so Band 4 costs points rather than your application
🔵 Group three: the UCAT isn't required at all

Policies change every cycle, and some of the schools below simply don't publish an SJT policy rather than actively welcoming Band 4. Treat this as your starting point, then confirm each one on the school's own website before you submit.

🟢 Group One: Schools That Don't Use the SJT

These are the safest ground available to you. Start your shortlist here.

University of Cambridge

Cambridge is the clearest statement on this list, and it names your entry year directly: for UCAT results it looks at the overall cognitive subtest score, and will not be using the situational judgement score as part of its assessment for 2027 entry. There's also no minimum UCAT threshold.

Cambridge is fiercely competitive for many other reasons. Your band isn't one of them.

University of Oxford

Oxford shortlists on GCSE performance alongside UCAT results, and states that it will not use an applicant's situational judgement score at that stage. Same principle as Cambridge: extremely hard to get into, but not because of your band.

University of Glasgow

Glasgow puts it in six words: "We do not consider the SJT portion of the UCAT." Interviews are allocated on your cognitive score for candidates meeting the other requirements.

Glasgow does set different thresholds by fee status, and won't know its 2027-entry thresholds until November 2026. For 2026 entry they were 1,870 for Scottish-domiciled applicants, 1,990 for the rest of the UK and 2,150 for international and EU applicants.

University of Bristol

Bristol selects for interview on the combined score from the subtests with the exception of Situational Judgement. Its threshold moves annually — for 2026 entry it was 2,240 for Home applicants and 2,270 for Overseas — so Bristol rewards a strong cognitive score rather than a soft policy. But your band is irrelevant here.

Swansea University (five-year MB BCh, A110)

Swansea's five-year Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery course sets a UCAT minimum of 1,900 and states that it will not assess the SJT component result.

The catch is eligibility. This course is only open to applicants ordinarily resident in, and schooled in, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion or Pembrokeshire, and it isn't open to international students.

North Wales Medical School, Bangor University

Bangor requires the UCAT and ranks applicants from highest to lowest score until interview slots are full. On the SJT bands its own guidance says: "Currently, these are not considered, but this is subject to change."

Worth knowing: Bangor's medicine courses are currently open only to applicants with permanent UK residency at the date of application.

Aston University

Aston publishes no lower cut-off score for the UCAT or for the SJT section, and says your score is considered alongside all its other entry requirements. Very few schools go that far in writing.

Cardiff University

Cardiff's published admissions information doesn't mention the SJT at all. What it does publish is decile-based UCAT scoring — 3 points for deciles 7 to 9, 2 points for deciles 4 to 6, 1 point for deciles 1 to 3 — sitting alongside a much larger GCSE score. A two-point spread between the strongest and weakest UCAT performers makes Cardiff a serious option if your GCSEs are excellent.

University of Aberdeen

Aberdeen uses no minimum cut-off and publishes no SJT band requirement. Your score is allocated points based on how you performed against everyone else who applied to Aberdeen, alongside your grades.

University of St Andrews

St Andrews ranks applicants on the global UCAT score and interviews roughly the top 650. Offers are then made on interview score, with the UCAT used to separate identical interview scores. The SJT band doesn't appear in the published process.

University of Dundee

Dundee states plainly that there is no minimum cut-off score, and its published entry requirements make no reference to an SJT band. It points applicants to its historic admissions statistics rather than a threshold.

Lancaster University

Lancaster shortlists for interview on UCAT scores, with a lower threshold available to borderline candidates meeting widening participation criteria. No SJT band policy appears in its published entry requirements.

University of Exeter

Exeter sorts applications by academic profile and overall UCAT score to decide who is invited to interview. Its public course information makes no reference to the SJT band.

University of Southampton

Southampton's published selection policy discusses the UCAT at length and ranks applicants on it for selection days, but contains no reference to the Situational Judgement Test at all.

University of Leeds

Leeds combines academic criteria with your UCAT score and states that there is no pre-determined cut-off score, with a high academic score able to compensate for a lower UCAT score and vice versa. No SJT band policy is published.

University of Plymouth

Plymouth's published information notes that its Admissions Advisory Panel reserves the right to consider all aspects of the UCAT when shortlisting, but sets out no SJT band rule. Its thresholds differ by fee status.

University of Lancashire (formerly UCLan)

The University of Lancashire publishes no SJT band requirement for its MBBS. Its course is open to international applicants, which is not true of every school on this list.

⚠️ A fair warning about this group. Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol, Swansea, Bangor, Aston and Cardiff all state their position on the SJT. The rest are schools whose published policies are silent on it. Silence usually means the band isn't used — but it isn't a promise. If one of them is going to be a genuine choice, send a two-line email to their admissions office and ask directly. You'll usually get an answer within a week, and it's the highest-value twenty minutes of your entire application.

Once your score gets you the interview

Your UCAT gets you the interview. The interview gets you the offer.

A mid-range score can win offers when your interview is strong, and even a high one can fall short without preparation. Our interview course is taught in small groups by NHS doctors, with realistic MMI practice and feedback on every station.

See the medical interview course Add a mock MMI circuit

🟡 Group Two: Schools That Use the SJT but Exclude No Band

Here your band is looked at, but it isn't a gate. Band 4 costs you points or a tie-break, not your application.

University of Sheffield

Sheffield is the most interesting school on this page for Band 4 applicants. Rather than banding you in or out, it converts your SJT result into a score out of five by quartile — 5 for the first quartile down to 2 for the fourth — and combines that with your Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) performance for a total out of 45. Applicants scoring three or better across every station and the SJT are prioritised in ranking.

There is no separate SJT band cut-off. The published minimum UCAT for 2027 entry is 1,800, calculated from the 40th centile across three years of testing, with separate ranking cut-offs by course and fee status.

University of Birmingham

Birmingham doesn't use the SJT band in its application score at all. Its own wording: the band will be used at the interview stage. The pre-interview score is 45% academic, 40% UCAT and 15% contextual, with the cognitive score converted by national decile, and there's no minimum UCAT cut-off.

Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia

The University of East Anglia (UEA) has no cut-off score of any kind, and says a high score is advantageous while a low score doesn't disqualify an applicant. Your SJT component score is included within your interview score, then applicants are ranked on interview and overall UCAT performance together.

If your band is your weakest point and your interview is your strongest, this is a very sensible place to spend a choice.

University College London

UCL ranks candidates on the total UCAT score and uses the SJT only to separate candidates who achieved the same score. It publishes no accepted or rejected bands. Overseas applicants are selected separately from Home applicants and face a higher threshold.

King's College London

King's says the overall UCAT score across subtests carries more weight than individual subtests, and that the SJT "is also taken into account when shortlisting". There's no threshold score in any given year and no published band bar.

Queen's University Belfast

Queen's uses the SJT at two narrow points: to separate borderline applicants with similar combined academic and UCAT scores, and to separate borderline applicants with similar interview scores. No band is excluded.

The bigger reason to look at Queen's is the weighting. Its pre-interview score is out of 45 — 36 points for academic background and just 9 for the UCAT. If your grades are strong and your test wasn't, few UK schools are kinder.

City St George's, University of London

City St George's confirms that for 2027 entry it will be considering SJT banding in its decision making, but doesn't publish which bands are excluded. It requires a minimum of 500 in each cognitive section plus an overall cut-off recalculated annually.

Because it hasn't ruled Band 4 out in writing, it sits here rather than in the rejection list — but this is one to email before you commit a choice to it.

🔵 Group Three: Schools That Don't Use the UCAT

If your band has genuinely knocked your confidence, these routes exist.

Three Counties Medical School, University of Worcester

Three Counties accepts the UCAT, the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT) or the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). It publishes no SJT band requirement, and uses CASPer — a separate situational judgement assessment — only for candidates who have already been shortlisted. Its guidance notes that most shortlisted applicants scored above 1,870 on the UCAT.

A school that assesses your judgement through a fresh test, after shortlisting, rather than through a band on a results page, is a meaningfully different proposition.

Ulster University

Ulster's graduate-entry Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) uses the GAMSAT, not the UCAT, with a minimum of 50 in each section and a competitive overall threshold. No SJT requirement applies. International applicants are accepted, though a clinical placement levy applies on top of tuition.

University of Buckingham

Buckingham requires no admissions test at all. You apply directly rather than through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), so it doesn't consume one of your four medicine choices, and selection runs through academic screening, a computer-based Multiple Mini Assessment and an MMI.

The catch is cost: £41,500 per year for UK students and £47,000 for international students across a 4.5-year course, with a deposit required to hold a place. For some families that's decisive; for others it's a genuine route.

🔴 Medical Schools That Do Not Accept SJT Band 4

Short, blunt and worth reading once so you never wonder again. These schools reject Band 4 outright, usually before anyone reads your application.

University of Manchester — does not consider applicants achieving Band 3 or Band 4
Newcastle University — Band 4 not considered for either A100 or A101
Keele University — applicants with a UCAT below 1,700 or an SJT result in band 4 will not be considered
University of Nottingham — does not accept applicants scoring Band 4
University of Edinburgh — Band 4 applicants not considered, with no exception for widening access eligibility
University of Leicester — Band 4 automatically rejected pre-interview
Queen Mary University of London (Barts and The London) — applications with Band 4 go no further than first shortlisting
Hull York Medical School — requires Band 1, 2 or 3, for Home and international applicants alike
Lincoln Medical School — Band 4 cannot progress to interview and is rejected at the point of application
Brighton and Sussex Medical School — only Bands 1 to 3 are ranked for interview
University of Sunderland — SJT must be within bands 1 to 3
Edge Hill University — any candidate in band 4 is automatically rejected
Anglia Ruskin University — Band 4 applicants are not invited to interview
Brunel University of London — does not accept applicants with SJT Band 4 (Home applicants only — see the international section below)
University of Liverpool — Home applicants must be in bands 1 to 3 (this does not apply to international and EU applicants — again, see below)
Kent and Medway Medical School — most recently published thresholds required Band 3 or above from school leavers and Band 2 or above from graduates

That's the honest picture. It's a long list, and it includes some schools you may have had your heart set on.

It's also not the whole map. Cross every one of them off in a single sitting, then stop looking at them. Your job now is the other half. 💪

🌍 SJT Band 4 and International Students: Where the Rules Change

This is the section most guides skip entirely, and it matters enormously, because for international applicants the SJT picture is genuinely different — in both directions.

🟢 University of Liverpool: the exception worth knowing about

Liverpool's published admissions supplement for 2027 entry sets two different standards. Home applicants must score in bands 1 to 3 for their application to be processed. International and EU applicants may offer any of the four SJT bands.

Read that again if you're applying from outside the UK. A school that rejects Band 4 from a British applicant will process your application with it.

The trade-off is the cognitive threshold. Liverpool's most recently published cut-offs were 1,960 for Home applicants and 2,080 for international and EU applicants, and it notes these vary year to year. So you're not getting an easier route overall — you're getting the SJT taken off the table in exchange for a higher score requirement.

If you hold Band 4 and international fee status, Liverpool should be on your shortlist.

🟢 Brunel University of London: no admissions test at all

Brunel doesn't accept Band 4 from Home applicants. But its international applicants do not require a UCAT or GAMSAT score to apply at all.

If you have Band 4 and international fee status, Brunel's band policy simply doesn't reach you.

🔴 Keele University: stricter for international applicants

Keele runs in the opposite direction. Home applicants are excluded at Band 4. International applicants need a minimum total UCAT of 1,950 and SJT band 3 or better — a firmer standard than the Home route, and one that rules Band 4 out just as decisively.

🔴 Hull York Medical School: identical for everyone

HYMS applies the same rule regardless of fee status: you must achieve Band 1, 2 or 3. There's no international flexibility here.

🚫 Schools closed to international applicants entirely

Several schools on the Group One list won't help an international applicant whatever their band, because they don't admit international students at all:

Swansea University five-year MB BCh (A110) — restricted to specified Welsh local authority areas
North Wales Medical School, Bangor — permanent UK residency required at the date of application
University of Sunderland — unable to accept international fee-paying applicants
Anglia Ruskin University — Home fee status required at the point of application

📈 Higher UCAT thresholds for overseas applicants

Where the SJT rules are identical, the cognitive bar usually isn't. Recently published or most recent available figures include:

University College London — 2,190 Home, 2,300 Overseas (2026 entry)
University of Glasgow — 1,870 Scottish-domiciled, 1,990 rest of UK, 2,150 international and EU (2026 entry)
University of Bristol — 2,240 Home, 2,270 Overseas (2026 entry)
University of Liverpool — 1,960 Home, 2,080 international and EU (2026 entry)

One school runs the other way: Sheffield's published ranking cut-off for 2027 entry A100 was 2,120 for Home applicants and 2,070 for international applicants — slightly lower for international candidates — while the minimum UCAT of 1,800 applies to everyone. Combined with Sheffield's no-band-excluded SJT scoring, that makes it a strong international option on Band 4.

🎤 Different selection processes, not just different numbers

A few schools assess international applicants through a different route altogether, which changes what your band is competing against:

Newcastle University ranks international applicants on total UCAT score alone, skipping the achieved-grades step used for Home applicants, and interviews them by panel rather than MMI. Band 4 still excludes you here — but it shows how differently the same school can treat the two pools.
University of Birmingham doesn't calculate an application score for international applicants at all, running instead through academic threshold, UCAT ranking and a non-academic assessment.
Queen's University Belfast doesn't score international applications on its 45-point system, weighing academic background and UCAT more holistically.
University of Leicester caps international places at a maximum of 18 per intake, so competition is far sharper than the Home route regardless of your band.
Kent and Medway Medical School has used an additional online assessment, CASPer, for international applicants at the second stage.

💷 One thing to plan for

International places are limited at every UK medical school — Cambridge lists 22, Queen's Belfast listed 26 — and international fees plus any clinical placement levy are substantially higher than Home fees. Whatever your band, apply to a realistic spread and have a plan for the finances before offers arrive. 🧾

🦷 What About Dental Schools and SJT Band 4?

Dentistry follows a broadly similar pattern, with one difference worth knowing: dental schools have historically been more likely than medical schools to use the SJT as a hard filter, and Band 4 is the band most commonly excluded.

Band 4 is therefore harder to work around in dentistry than in medicine, and the policies vary more while being published in less detail. If dentistry is your route, check each dental school individually rather than assuming, and have a look at our dedicated guide to UCAT cut-off scores for UK dental schools.

🎯 How to Build Your Four Choices With SJT Band 4

Step one: delete the sixteen, in one sitting

Open the rejection list above, remove every one of those schools from your shortlist, and close the tab. Do it properly, once, and then stop revisiting it. Applicants lose whole weeks to re-reading policies hoping they've misunderstood.

Step two: fill at least two choices from Group One

Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol, Aston, Cardiff, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Dundee, Lancaster, Exeter, Southampton, Leeds, Plymouth, Lancashire, Swansea and Bangor are all places where your band is not in the equation.

Two of your four should come from here. That means half your application is completely insulated from the thing you're worried about — which is also, incidentally, very good for your sleep between now and December.

Step three: match the other two to what your application actually does well

Your band is one variable. Your GCSEs, predicted grades, personal statement, experience and interview are the others, and schools weight them very differently:

Strong GCSEs? Cardiff and Queen's Belfast let academics carry most of the load — Queen's gives academic background 36 of its 45 pre-interview points.
Confident interviewer? UEA folds the SJT into your interview score, and Sheffield combines it with your MMI stations for one total out of 45.
Strong cognitive score despite the band? Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and Glasgow reward exactly that.
International fee status? Liverpool and Brunel are the two names to write down first.
Eligible for widening participation? Edge Hill and Lancaster both extend thresholds, though note that Edge Hill still rejects Band 4.

Step four: be realistic about competitiveness

Here's a genuine risk worth naming. The schools that ignore the SJT include several of the most competitive in the UK. Filling all four choices with Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and Glasgow because they ignore your band would be a strategic mistake if your cognitive score and grades aren't up there too.

Balance it. One or two aspirational choices, and two where your overall profile is genuinely competitive.

🚩 Check this before you apply

Whatever list you build, do this in one sitting with four browser tabs open:

Confirm each school's current SJT policy on its own website, not on a forum or a summary page (including this one).
Where a school is silent on the SJT rather than explicit, email their admissions office and ask directly. Keep the reply.
Confirm the cognitive threshold too, and check whether it differs by fee status.
Check whether the page says 2026 or 2027 entry — plenty of school pages still show last cycle's rules in September.
Note any extra deadlines and separate forms beyond the UCAS submission.

Twenty minutes of checking can save your whole cycle. With Band 4, it genuinely might. ⏳

Don't waste your fifth choice 🎓

UCAS gives you four medicine choices plus a fifth that must be something else. Pick a course you'd genuinely enjoy — Biomedical Science, Pharmacology or Physiology are all sensible — because a strong degree opens graduate-entry medicine later, and graduate entry is a real, well-trodden route rather than a consolation prize.

🔁 Should You Apply Now or Take a Gap Year?

Not this cycle, whatever you decide about the band itself. You can only sit the UCAT once per testing year, so the band you hold is the band you're applying with. The next opportunity is summer 2027, for 2028 entry.

That makes the real question a strategic one, and with Band 4 it's a closer call than it is with Band 3.

Apply now if your cognitive score is solid, your GCSEs are good and your predicted grades are strong. You have around half the country's medical schools available to you and four choices to spend. A gap year costs you a year to fix one variable.

Consider a planned gap year if Band 4 sits alongside a bottom-decile cognitive score and borderline grades. In that case the band isn't really your problem — the whole test is — and reapplying with results in hand, proper preparation and no exam pressure is a genuinely stronger position.

A middle path worth considering: apply this cycle to a well-chosen four, and prepare quietly for a resit in parallel. Plenty of successful applicants did exactly that.

If you do sit it again, the SJT is one of the most improvable parts of the whole test, because it rewards understanding how the General Medical Council (GMC) expects doctors to behave rather than raw speed. The jump from Band 4 to Band 2 is very achievable with structured practice. Our free UCAT Situational Judgement guide walks through the banding and the scenario types in detail.

🎤 Your Interview Matters More Than Your Band

Here's what gets lost in all the band anxiety. At every school that will consider you, the SJT does its work before the interview and then largely disappears. What decides your year is the twenty minutes you spend in an MMI circuit.

UEA weights your interview and your UCAT together for the final ranking.
Sheffield combines your SJT score with your MMI scores for one total out of 45.
Birmingham brings the band in at interview, not before it.
St Andrews makes offers on interview score, with the UCAT only separating ties.
Queen's Belfast ranks on the post-interview score.

Every school interviews more people than it has places. The room is where the decision happens — and unlike your band, the room is entirely within your control between now and December.

Try these out loud, with a timer set to eight minutes each:

A fellow student asks you to cover for them at a compulsory teaching session. What do you do, and who do you tell?
You notice a colleague on placement has made a drug error but seems unaware. Walk us through your next hour.
A patient tells you they've read online that their treatment is wrong. How do you respond?
Tell us about a time your judgement turned out to be wrong. What changed afterwards?
An elderly patient refuses a treatment you believe they need. What are your responsibilities?
Why medicine, and why this medical school? Don't mention the campus.

These are here for your own practice, and working through them properly will take you a long way on your own.

What they can't give you is the real thing: a timed circuit, actors you've never met, a buzzer, and an experienced interviewer telling you exactly where you dropped marks. If that's what you're after, have a look at our MMI Courses page, where we run full timed Mock MMI Circuits with individual feedback on every station. 🎯

⏰ Key Dates for 2027 Entry

13 September 2026: UCAT preliminary statistics published
24 September 2026: last day of UCAT testing, with final statistics following shortly after
6pm, 15 October 2026: UCAS deadline for most medicine and dentistry courses
Late October 2026: additional school-specific forms and selection tools close — check each school
Early November 2026: UCAT results delivered to universities, and several schools set their thresholds
December 2026 to March 2027: most medical school interviews

📌 SJT Band 4: Key Facts at a Glance

Band 4 is described by the UCAT Consortium as performance that was "low, with judgement tending to differ substantially from ideal responses in many cases"
Around 10% of 2026 candidates received Band 4 on preliminary figures
Roughly sixteen UK medical schools exclude Band 4 outright, including Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Keele, Leicester, Queen Mary and Hull York
Cambridge states it will not use the situational judgement score for 2027 entry; Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol, Swansea (A110) and Bangor also don't use it
Aston publishes no cut-off for the UCAT or the SJT
Sheffield scores the SJT by quartile rather than excluding any band
Liverpool accepts any of the four SJT bands from international and EU applicants, while requiring bands 1 to 3 from Home applicants
Brunel requires no admissions test from international applicants
Keele is stricter for international applicants, requiring Band 3 or better plus a minimum of 1,950
Buckingham requires no admissions test and doesn't use a UCAS choice
You cannot resit the UCAT within the same cycle

❓ SJT Band 4: Frequently Asked Questions

Can you get into medicine with SJT Band 4?

Yes. Around half of UK medical schools will still consider your application, including several that don't use the Situational Judgement Test at all. You'll have fewer options than a Band 1 or Band 2 candidate, and you'll need to choose your four schools deliberately rather than by reputation — but the route is open.

Which medical schools accept SJT Band 4 for 2027 entry?

Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol, Swansea (A110), Bangor, Aston, Cardiff, Aberdeen, St Andrews and Dundee either state they don't use the SJT or publish no band requirement. Sheffield, Birmingham, UEA, UCL, King's College London, Queen's Belfast and City St George's use the SJT without excluding any band. Buckingham, Ulster and Three Counties don't require the UCAT in the usual way.

Which medical schools reject SJT Band 4?

Manchester, Newcastle, Keele, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Leicester, Queen Mary, Hull York, Lincoln, Brighton and Sussex, Sunderland, Edge Hill, Anglia Ruskin, Brunel and Liverpool all exclude Band 4 for Home applicants, and Kent and Medway's most recent published thresholds did too. Brunel and Liverpool treat international applicants differently.

Is SJT Band 4 worse than Band 3?

Considerably, in admissions terms. Only one medical school excludes Band 3, whereas around sixteen exclude Band 4. The UCAT Consortium describes Band 3 as "modest" and Band 4 as "low", and admissions policies draw the line in exactly that gap. If you're looking for the Band 3 picture instead, we've covered it in our guide to medical schools that accept SJT Band 3.

Do international students face the same SJT Band 4 rules?

Not always. Liverpool accepts all four SJT bands from international and EU applicants while requiring bands 1 to 3 from Home applicants, and Brunel requires no admissions test from international applicants at all. Keele runs the other way, requiring Band 3 or better plus a minimum UCAT of 1,950 from international applicants. Several schools that ignore the SJT — including Swansea's A110, Bangor, Sunderland and Anglia Ruskin — don't admit international students at all.

Does SJT Band 4 mean I'd be a bad doctor?

No. The SJT is a 26-minute multiple-choice test taken under significant time pressure, and it measures how closely your answers matched an expert panel's on that particular day. It isn't a character assessment, and no medical school treats it as one after you've been admitted. Once you hold an offer, your UCAT result plays no part in your degree, your finals or your Foundation Programme application.

Can I resit the UCAT to improve my band?

Not within the same cycle — you can only sit the UCAT once per testing year. Your next opportunity would be summer 2027, for 2028 entry. The SJT is among the most improvable sections with structured preparation, so a resit is a reasonable plan if you're already leaning towards a gap year.

Is SJT Band 4 accepted for dentistry?

Less often than in medicine. Dental schools have historically been more likely to use the SJT as a hard filter, and Band 4 is the band most commonly excluded. Policies vary and are often published in less detail, so check each dental school's own admissions page individually before applying.

Should I mention my SJT band in my personal statement?

No. Your personal statement is a limited amount of space and should be spent on what draws you to medicine and what you've learned from your experience. Admissions teams already have your band. Drawing attention to it uses valuable characters to highlight your weakest metric.

🔗 Useful Links

UCAT and applications

Medical schools that don't use the SJT

Medical schools that use the SJT without excluding a band

Medical schools that exclude Band 4

Routes that don't use the UCAT

More from Blue Peanut Medical

The Blue Peanut Medical team is led by experienced National Health Service (NHS) General Practitioners with extensive involvement in medical education, and is dedicated to helping applicants succeed at every stage of their journey into medical school.

Admissions policies change every cycle, and several of the schools listed here publish no SJT policy at all rather than an explicit one. Always confirm current requirements on the medical school's own website — or by email — before you submit your UCAS application. Last updated 20 September 2026.

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The Blue Peanut Team

This content is provided in good faith and based on information from medical school websites at the time of writing. Entry requirements can change, so always check directly with the university before making decisions. You’re free to accept or reject any advice given here, and you use this information at your own risk. We can’t be held responsible for errors or omissions — but if you spot any, please let us know and we’ll update it promptly. Information from third-party websites should be considered anecdotal and not relied upon.