Medicine with a BTEC?

Not aware of any medical schools that accept BTECs.

Oxford requires A-level Biology and Chemistry. I suppose in principle they might accept a BTEC as a third subject but honestly I really doubt it.

Yeah, I thought it was unlikely, but the way they phrase it on their website makes it seem like they accept BTEC L3 Applied Science by itself:
"Our requirements for an applicant taking BTEC qualifications would typically be:

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Applied Science (to include units in Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry)
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in Applied Science (to include units in Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry) plus 1 A-level
BTEC Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Applied Science (to include units in Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry) plus 2 A-levels (one of which must be Biology, Physics or Mathematics)
BTEC Level 3 Extended Certificate or Subsidiary Diploma in Applied Science plus 2 A-levels (one of which must be Chemistry)".

It's just the way they make provisions for the Foundation Diploma, saying you have to take biology as well, which I assumed would already be a requirement, as you say.
The way they phrased it threw me off.

It is a bit strange, but yes they do accept BTEC Extended Diploma in Applied Science. You would need to "achieve grades of D*DD or the equivalent" and do "units in Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry", which can vary from school to school. You'd need mostly 9s or 8s at GCSE though and a very good BMAT score, though I think they're dropping it next cycle.

Contrary to popular belief, you can do medicine with just a BTEC, though it can take longer as most that accept it require you to do a foundation year (so 6 years in total instead of 5). If you have the choice though, just go with A-levels, they're more respected and can take you many many more places that a BTEC could.

University of Bristol - you need DDD and to do specific chemistry units
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/2024/medicine/mb-chb-medicine/

University of Leicester (medicine with a foundation year) - you need DDD and to qualify for some widening participation criteria
https://le.ac.uk/study/medicine/entry-requirements/foundation

University of Leicester (medicine with a foundation year) - you need DDM and to qualify for some widening participation criteria
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/bmbs-bachelor-of-medicine-bachelor-of-surgery-with-foundation-year-0/entry-requirements

University of East Anglia (medicine with a foundation year) - you need DDM and to qualify for some widening participation criteria
https://www.uea.ac.uk/course/undergraduate/mbbs-medicine-with-a-gateway-year

Keele University (medicine with a foundation year) - you need DDM and to qualify for some widening participation criteria
https://www.keele.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/undergraduatecourses/medicine/medicinehealthfoundationyear/#academic-requirements

Hull York Medical School (medicine with a foundation year) - you need DDD and to qualify for some widening participation criteria
https://www.hyms.ac.uk/medicine/entry-requirements/entry-requirements-gateway

I'm interested in doing a Level 3 BTEC Extended Diploma in Applied Science, but this will limit my options for medicine (which I kind of want to do, not 100% decided yet.)
I was looking at the entry requirements on UCAS and pretty much all of the courses said BTEC-not accepted. But then I came across Oxford's medicine course and it seemed to say it was accepted, by itself?
But this can't be right, surely? No university would accept BTEC for medicine from my reading, so why would Oxford?
Very confused.

Note that it's not just "some widening participation criteria" - those are actually the main criteria to be eligible for those foundation years. Medicine with foundation year courses are specifically designed for that purpose.

Seeing as OP apparently just started their GCSEs recently, I suspect they are trying to plan ahead around their options - so it may create a false sense of hope for plans that are really fundamentally unlikely to lead them to a successful medical application. Those courses only apply to people who meet the requirements.

If OP wants the best chance at getting into medicine, they should be planning to do A-levels, and specifically planning to take two sciences including at least one of biology or chemistry. Anything else and they immediately put themselves at a severe disadvantage due to ruling out the vast majority of medical schools out of the gate - and then if the one or two that will consider them require e.g. a high UCAT score or high GCSE results and the OP doesn't have those, then their medicine options are gone.


As stated, unless you want to make your chances of getting into medicine much, much smaller immediately, you should be aiming to do A-levels or an equivalent academic course (such as IB or something). 60% of applicants to medicine get no offers, and those are from applicants doing A-levels who have the full range of medical schools to choose between. If you limit yourself to 2 out of 40 medical schools immediately then end up not meeting the requirements for one of those, you are putting all your eggs in a very small basket. It would be inadvisable to say the least.

That said since evidently you're just doing your GCSEs still based on your posting history, I wouldn't focus on it overmuch - see how your GCSEs go and how you feel about wanting to pursue medicine or anything in that vein when you come to the end of GCSEs. You can then reflect on your strengths and interests and make more accurate future plans. But the point remains that I would absolutely not recommend planning to do a BTEC if your aim is medicine. If you're already doing a BTEC and want to go into medicine there may be some options and different routes in but they're likely to be harder than the alternative.

i'm literally starting year 12 in september and i'm also doing applied science , but i'm interested in doing medicine and i also saw the oxford entry requirements saying that btec were in applied science were accpeted , to be honest i think the best thing to do it's to send email ask them , but hopefully that is true as it opens the doors to btec students.