British students choose law or medicine straight out of school, as an undergraduate degree, and the most sought-after universities add an aptitude test to the UCAS application: the LNAT for law, the UCAT for medicine. Neither checks knowledge. Both measure how a candidate reads, reasons and decides, in English and against the clock. That is where students from the French system, even very strong ones, tend to lose points. (The maths and science tests used by Oxford and Cambridge are covered separately in Oxford and Cambridge admissions tests.)
Which universities require them
The LNAT list is short. The test's own site names nine UK universities for undergraduate law: Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow, King's College London, LSE, Oxford, SOAS and UCL. Three institutions outside the UK use it under certain conditions, IE University in Spain among them. Nottingham, which still appears in older guides, no longer does.
The UCAT list is long: 51 UK universities, which covers nearly every medical school and several dental schools, from Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, UCL and King's to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle and Belfast. Seven universities abroad also use it, including NUS and NTU in Singapore. In practice, anyone applying for medicine in the UK sits the UCAT.
| LNAT | UCAT | |
|---|---|---|
| Used for | Law (LLB, BA Jurisprudence) | Medicine, often dentistry |
| Sections | 42 multiple-choice questions on 12 argumentative passages in 95 minutes, then a 40-minute essay chosen from three titles | Verbal Reasoning (44 questions, 22 min), Decision Making (35, 37 min), Quantitative Reasoning (36, 26 min), Situational Judgement (69, 26 min) |
| Result | A score out of 42; the essay is not marked by LNAT but sent to universities | A total of 900 to 2,700 across the three cognitive subtests, plus a Situational Judgement band from 1 to 4 |
| Where | Pearson VUE centres, France included | Pearson VUE centres, France included |
How Oxford uses the LNAT when there are no GCSEs
LNAT itself says the test has no fixed weight and each university uses it differently. Oxford's law faculty is unusually open about its method, and what it publishes matters a great deal to students from French schools.
Its Law Admissions Report for 2025-2026 explains how the first interview shortlist is drawn up. For British applicants, the ranking is 80% contextualised GCSE results and 10% for each of the two LNAT scores, the multiple-choice and the essay. Applicants without GCSEs, which includes anyone taking the French baccalaureate, are ranked separately on the two LNAT scores with equal weight, then adjusted individually in light of their school results. A test worth one fifth of the ranking for an English student is most of the first cut for a French one.
The same report gives the scale: 2,115 applicants, of whom 671 overseas and 192 from the EU; 630 interviewed; 252 offers.
Four and a half points separate the average applicant from the average interviewee, and about one point separates interviewees from offer holders. After the shortlist the LNAT matters little; before it, it matters almost entirely. Cambridge requires the LNAT from every law applicant without publishing how it weighs it, and reported seven applications per place and 232 acceptances in 2025.
The UCAT, and how few medical places go to international students
The UCAT runs just under two hours with no pause and no negative marking. The consortium publishes its figures: in the 2026 cycle, 42,359 tests, a mean total of 1,918 out of 2,700 and a ninth decile of 2,250. Verbal Reasoning had the lowest mean of the three cognitive subtests, 602, against 640 for Decision Making and 675 for Quantitative Reasoning, in a cohort made up overwhelmingly of native English speakers.
Universities use the score in very different ways: a cut-off, points added to an academic score, or a tie-breaker. Cambridge, for one, looks only at the total of the cognitive subtests, sets no minimum, and will not use Situational Judgement for 2027 entry.
For a French applicant the harder constraint is elsewhere. Since Brexit, a French student without UK settled or pre-settled status applies as an international student, and international places in medicine are capped. The Medical Schools Council states that in England the cap is 7.5% of permitted student numbers, regulated by the Office for Students, with the same rate in Wales. Oxford says it can admit no more than fourteen international medical students a year across its courses. Cambridge lists 22 places at the overseas fee rate, against 270 medical students accepted in 2025. Who can still claim that status, and why a family that moved to London after 2021 usually cannot, is explained in Study in the UK with a French baccalaureate.
That shows in the scores. In a freedom-of-information response on 2025 entry, the University of East Anglia gave the lowest UCAT score invited to interview: 2,080 for home applicants, 2,490 for international ones, on the old 3,600 scale that still had four cognitive subtests. Same school, same course, a much higher bar.
My view is plain: UK medicine from a French lycée can be done, but it is a narrow door and should never be the only plan. Medical studies in France, which are reorganised from September 2027 as I explain in Is medicine still a good choice with AI, are the natural parallel route.
Example: the timeline for entry in September 2027.
UCAT: registration from 20 May 2026, booking from 23 June, testing from 13 July to 24 September, booking closed on 16 September at 3pm UK time. Results reach universities in early November. The 2026 fee outside the UK was £115.
LNAT: registration from 1 August 2026, testing from 1 September. Oxford and Cambridge: book by 15 September and sit by 15 October. King's, LSE and UCL: sit by 31 December. Bristol and Durham: 13 January 2027. All others: 25 January. LNAT lists a fee of £75 at UK and EU centres, £120 elsewhere.
UCAS: applications in by 6pm on 15 October 2026 for medicine, Oxford and Cambridge; 13 January 2027 for law elsewhere.
A medicine applicant therefore sits the UCAT in the summer between première and terminale (Year 12 and Year 13 in British terms), or in the first weeks of the final year, before any final results exist and before an application that also goes in mid-October. The predicted grades a French lycée has to enter on that application raise their own difficulties, covered in UCAS with the French baccalaureate.
Why strong French students stumble on verbal reasoning
You might expect a student trained in the French explication de texte, the close reading of a passage, and the dissertation, the structured essay, to arrive with an advantage. Often it works the other way, for reasons of method more than language.
French schooling teaches students to enrich a text: find the author's intention, bring in what they know, add nuance, open the question up. UCAT Verbal Reasoning wants the opposite. A statement is true, false, or cannot be determined from the passage, and outside knowledge is a trap. With 44 questions in 22 minutes, reading included, there are about thirty seconds per question. The student who "understands" the passage in the school sense answers True where the text does not allow any conclusion.
The LNAT multiple-choice section is slower, a little over two minutes a question, but it tests the same skill on argumentative passages: which assumption the author relies on without stating it, which sentence would weaken the argument, which conclusion does not follow. These are logic questions dressed as reading questions.
Then the essay. Forty minutes, one of three titles, and LNAT says it wants candidates to argue economically and reach a conclusion. The French three-part plan, ending on a synthesis that leaves both sides standing, is the worst habit to bring into that room. The reader wants a position stated early, defended, with objections answered, not a balance.
What candidates report
On The Student Room, LNAT threads keep coming back to the same point: commercial books do not match the real test, some too easy and some much harder, and the two official papers are the best predictor. One candidate describes averaging 29 on them and scoring 27 on the day. Another says they cleared 30 on a book seen as too easy; a third was stuck around 20 on a private question bank reputed to be harder than the test itself.
The testimonials UCAT publishes point the same way. Former candidates recommend four to eight weeks of preparation, one full test first to find weak spots, then targeted work. A candidate who scored 2,520 warns that unofficial materials are usually harder than the official mocks and can knock confidence. Another booked a late-June slot to keep the summer free, and because popular dates go quickly.
LNAT practice test, UCAT practice test: where to start
With the official materials, and nothing else for the first few weeks. LNAT provides two full papers with a commentary and marking scheme, plus an onscreen sample test, in real conditions, that can be taken any number of times. UCAT offers four full practice tests, each in standard timing, with 25% extra time and untimed, plus fifteen question banks across the subtests.
What I advise a student from a French lycée: one full timed test to establish a level, then an analysis of every error by cause. Reading too slowly, importing outside knowledge, drawing too wide a conclusion: each needs a different fix. Then verbal reasoning every day, in English, on British newspaper articles, with the UCAT question in mind: what does the passage allow me to say, and nothing more. For the LNAT, one essay a week in 40 minutes on a current-affairs question, reread to check the position is stated in the first lines and held to the end. Full tests every two weeks, then weekly as the date approaches.
A UK law or medicine application is decided over a few tight months: choosing universities by how they use the test, booking the date, predicted grades, the personal statement, then interviews. At Carmine we build that timeline with the student and family and prepare the tests and interviews with them; Our admissions support explains how we work, and you can write to us to discuss it.