Can I study dentistry with my grades ??

Helloo! So I'm currently in year 12 and I'm looking into studying dentistry hopefully, however, most universities are looking at really high GCSE grades and mine are:

English lit: 5
English lang: 6
Maths: 5
Science: 6-6
Geography: 5
Business: 5
Art: 7
Spanish: 4

So as you can see not the *greatest* of results however I'm not unhappy as I am currently studying biology, chemistry, and psychology. I'm confident that I'll achieve really high grades in these subjects if I continue working hard however I'm not confident I'll be able to get into dentistry let alone medicine due to my GCSE grades. I'm just wondering what the best course of action would be in my case. Do I apply to a clinical degree first like biomed or pharmacy first? and if I do this first and then apply for dentistry will they STILL look at my GCSE grades?? I'm currently working really hard to build up my work experience and volunteering etc.. please help !!

(edited 6 months ago)

Reply 1

StudentDa

Sure, they're low GCSE's for a Dentistry application but that just means you'll have to be strategic with your applications. So don't apply to places like Birmingham which would auto reject you based solely off your GCSEs. Newcastle doesn't have minimum GCSE requirements as far as I'm aware

You may find it necessary to resit Maths or English Language in order to meet the minimum requirements for many courses cos your options are hindered by your GCSEs imo.

You'll also have to compensate for your lower GCSEs with a higher UCAT (something like 2800 Band 2 minimum) and better predicted grades to try and get an interview slot. Cos courses will rank all applicants based off of UCATs and predicteds in a big list. Then once they've decided the number of interviews they're doing for this cycle (say 250), they'll pick the top 250 candidates off the list and reject the rest.

I wouldn't recommend going for the graduate entry route for Dentistry. Dentistry is already the most competitive undergraduate course in the UK ahead of even Medicine, but graduate entry is 10 times tougher to get in.