Getting into Oxford is hard. Getting onto a medicine course is hard. Getting into medicine at Oxford is incredibly hard, but, as it turns out, worth it.
Each year, various different people rank every university in the world based on a variety of criteria ranging from quality of teaching to student satisfaction, and one of the biggest annual charts is that of Times Higher Education. Not only does THE rank universities, it also ranks subjects, and where in the world you’re best placed to study everything from law to physics.
This year, Oxford University claimed top spot for medicine. It scored well on all five of the measures, which were research quality, research environment, teaching, industry impact, and international outlook. Each school is given individual scores in each category and one overall average – this is what Oxford is leading in.
The English institution had scores above 90 out of 100 in all five categories and achieved 96 overall, beating out Harvard, which came second, by just 1.2 points. It particularly excels in industry output, where it had a perfect 100/100. In Times Higher Education’s global universities ranking, published last October, Oxford came top (and several London unis placed highly).
Despite its prestige and renown, medical students at Oxford will have the exact same chances of getting their first choice of location for their foundation years as junior doctors in the UK. However they will have an advantage if they choose to go into research, which could be a big part of the reason a student would sign onto the extra intensity of Oxbridge on an already intense degree.
But if you don’t feel up for any unnecessary stress (but still, for some reason, want to become a doctor) Oxford wasn’t the only British medical school to triumph. Cambridge, Imperial College London, and University College London (UCL) were all also in the top 10, and the University of Bristol claimed the gold for research quality. In fact, nine of the top ten in that category were in the UK.
You can have a look at Times Higher Education’s university rankings for major subjects in 2025 here.
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