Edgbaston College is an independent sixth form in Birmingham specialising in medicine and dentistry A-level resits. We keep this table current because resit applicants are routinely turned away from schools that would, in fact, have considered them. Every UK medical school’s A-level resit policy below is verified against official university pages and Freedom of Information responses, and powered by EDGU, our free medical-school selector. Read it as a starting point, not a verdict.
One thing matters more than any single row: most medical schools that publicly state they “do not accept resits” will still consider a resit application backed by evidenced extenuating circumstances. Count how many rows in the “not accepted” group below already read “extenuating circumstances only”. The table gives you each school’s default rule. It cannot tell you whether your case is the exception, how strong your evidence needs to be, or how to present it, and for resit applicants that is usually where the place is won or lost. That is the work Edgbaston College does.
Three groups:
Resits accepted Accepted with conditions Not accepted
Not Accepted First sitting only — 18 schools
| Aberdeen | First sitting only, completed within two years of study. |
| Bangor | A-level resits not accepted (GCSE resits fine within 12 months). |
| Birmingham | No GCSE or A-level resits for standard applicants. |
| Cambridge | Expects first-attempt grades; disruption/mitigation route only. |
| Cardiff | Not normally — narrow exception if you held a conditional offer last cycle, with evidence. |
| City St George’s | A-levels must be completed in one sitting across two years; extenuating circumstances only. |
| Dundee | Same-sitting required; extenuating circumstances only. |
| Edinburgh | All grades at first attempt — resit applicants are not entered into selection. |
| Glasgow | One attempt at A-level (resits at GCSE/Nat5 level are fine). |
| Imperial | Same sitting required; resits not normally accepted. |
| Kent & Medway | Resits not accepted except via extenuating circumstances; selects on achieved grades. |
| Leicester | Not accepted; substantial mitigation only. |
| Oxford | Extenuating circumstances only. |
| Queen Mary (Barts) | Equality Act 2010 grounds only. |
| Queen’s Belfast | Extenuating circumstances only. |
| St Andrews | Extenuating circumstances only. |
| UCL | Extenuating circumstances only (GCSE resits to meet the minimum are fine). |
| UCLan | A-level resits not accepted; case-by-case on circumstances. |
With conditions Resits accepted IF your first sitting hit a bar — 13 schools
| Anglia Ruskin | AAB at first sitting (BBB on their WAMS contextual route); waived once the full offer is already achieved on resit. |
| Brighton & Sussex | One dropped grade in one subject only — and the resit subject must be predicted at the required grade. |
| East Anglia (UEA) | First-sit bar plus at least one A* in the subject(s) being resat; more than one resit not normally considered. |
| Hull York | BBB at first sitting, minimum B in each subject. |
| Keele | Resits accepted, but you cannot apply during the resit year — apply after results with achieved grades. |
| Lancaster | ABB at first attempt; maximum two attempts. |
| Lincoln | ABB at first sitting. |
| Liverpool | ABB at first sitting, then a higher offer applies on the resit. |
| Manchester | ABB at first sitting, A*A*A required on resit, and you may resit only one of Year 12/13. |
| Newcastle | Resits accepted — but the resat subject’s requirement rises a grade (A becomes A*). PARTNERS applicants keep the reduced offer. |
| Nottingham | ABB at first sitting. |
| Plymouth | ABB at first sitting (ABC on the widening-access route). |
| Sunderland | AAB at first sitting — effectively resitting one grade. |
Resits accepted No first-sit condition — 9 schools
| Aston | One resit year, within three academic years. |
| Bristol | Resits accepted; the three A-levels need not be from one sitting. |
| Brunel | Resits accepted; qualifications within five years. |
| Edge Hill | GCSE and A-level resits accepted. |
| Exeter | Resits accepted (part or all) — and achieved grades score higher in their selection formula. |
| King’s College London | A first resit is considered equal to a first sitting. |
| Leeds | One resit per A-level (and per GCSE) without needing mitigation — new from 2026 entry. |
| Sheffield | One resit per A-level, all resits in the same sitting. |
| Southampton | One retake per subject, up to three subjects; the standard AAA offer applies. |
Standard (home) applicants, 2027 entry. Buckingham (private) excluded. Policies change every cycle — always confirm on the university’s own page before submitting UCAS. GCSE resits are a separate question: accepted at 29 of 41 schools, several counting first sittings only.
How Edgbaston College reads this table: treat almost every “not accepted” row above as “not without a case”. The schools that look closed are frequently the ones where a well-evidenced, well-presented extenuating-circumstances application makes the difference, and where most applicants give up too early.
Why a “no” is rarely a “never”
Look closely at the eighteen schools in the “not accepted” group. For most of them the wording is not “never” but “extenuating circumstances only”, “substantial mitigation only”, or “Equality Act 2010 grounds”. That is a door, not a wall. What no university publishes is the part that actually decides your application: whether your circumstances qualify, what counts as credible evidence, and how the case should be written for an admissions panel. Edgbaston College, an independent sixth form specialising in medicine and dentistry resits, helps students work out whether they have a genuine extenuating-circumstances case, gather the right evidence, and present it to each school in the form admissions tutors expect.
Choosing the right four
A UCAS form gives you four medical choices. A resit applicant who spends them on schools with first-sitting bars they do not clear, or on schools that quietly down-rank resit applicants, can lose an entire year. The right four are not the four with the friendliest headline policy. They depend on your exact first-sit grades, your UCAT and SJT, and your contextual flags, measured against how each school actually scores its applicants. Our free EDGU tool scores your profile against every school’s selection system; Edgbaston College turns that into a four-school strategy built around your specific resit pattern.
Presenting a resit application
Two applicants with identical grades are not read identically. Whether a dip is read sympathetically or filtered out depends on how it is framed in the personal statement, what the academic reference says about it, and how the supporting evidence is assembled. This is advisory work, and it is what Edgbaston College does for medicine and dentistry resit applicants every cycle.
Resitting for medicine? Talk to the people who do this every cycle.
The policy table is the easy part. Whether your circumstances qualify, which four schools to target, and how to present the application is what changes the outcome. Edgbaston College runs one-year A-level retake programmes and advises medicine and dentistry resit applicants on exactly these decisions.
Speak to Edgbaston College One-year A-level retake programme
Birmingham campus and online. Call 0121 306 0182 or prefer to check your own profile first? Use our free tool, EDGU →
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