Didn't Get the Grades for Dentistry? 3 Real Routes

Results morning, 13 August. You opened the email at 8am, and the letter next to biology or chemistry was not the one you needed. If you didn't get the grades for dentistry today, I want to say one thing before the panic properly sets in: this is not the end of the road. And I'm not saying that as a motivational poster. I'm saying it because at Medently we spend all year placing students into English-taught European dental and medical schools, and two of the three realistic routes I'm about to walk you through never look at your A-level grades at all.

Quick intro so you know who's talking. I'm Usman, a medical student and Head of Student Relations at Medently. I've had my own version of this morning, and I've spent this summer walking dentistry applicants through theirs. The single biggest thing I didn't know back then: the UK's obsession with A*AA is a UK thing, not a dentistry thing. Hold that thought while we sort out your next few hours.

First, breathe. Then do these things before 1pm

Whatever route you end up taking, use this morning properly. A couple of focused phone calls occasionally save an offer, and even when they don't, they close the UK chapter cleanly so you can move with a clear head.

• Call your firm dental school first: ask, politely and directly, whether they'll still take you with a near miss. It's rare in dentistry, but one grade off an offer is exactly the situation where flexibility occasionally exists, and asking costs nothing.
• Then call your insurance choice: same question, same calm tone. Have your UCAS ID and your actual grades in front of you.
• Get your paperwork into one folder: statement of results, GCSE certificates, passport. Every route below, British or European, will want these documents soon.
• Remember Clearing opens at 1pm: you can't add a Clearing choice in the UCAS Hub before 1pm on results day, so spend the morning on calls, not on refreshing the page.

The honest truth about dentistry Clearing

Now the part most results-day articles dance around. BDS places in UCAS Clearing are close to nonexistent. Going into this results day, the only UK dental school confirmed open in Clearing was the University of Portsmouth, and only for EU and international applicants. That is the entire list.

It makes sense when you look at the front door. King's College London asks for A*AA with the A* in Biology or Chemistry, grade 6 or above in GCSE English and Maths, plus the UCAT. Demand like that means UK dentistry fills every seat in the main cycle, so there is simply nothing left to clear. I'm not telling you this to be gloomy. I'm telling you so you don't burn the next 48 hours redialling Clearing lines for places that were never there, when you could be spending that energy on routes with actual seats in them.

Didn't get the grades for dentistry? At some schools, the grades were never the gate

Here's the reframe that changes everything about this query. In the UK, A-levels are the only currency dentistry accepts. Across parts of Europe, they're often not the currency at all. Some English-taught dental schools run their own entrance exam and genuinely do not look at what your A-level certificate says. Another scores your documents, but with rules generous enough that a good-but-not-A*AA file competes properly. The degrees at the end are the same length as a BDS, taught in English, and recognised across the EU and EEA.

That's the world Medently works in. We're a free service, no agency fees ever, founded and run by medical students, and dentistry placements are a core part of what we do year-round. We have four partner universities: Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (UPJŠ), Slovakia; Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic; UMCH Medical Campus Hamburg, Germany (medicine only, so not one for today); and Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) in Riga, Latvia. Three of those teach dentistry in English. Here's how each looks from exactly where you're sitting right now, in order of how fast they can move.

The 3 real routes at a glance

Here are your three realistic pathways, starting with the fastest option. The detail on each one follows below.

Route 1: UPJŠ in Košice, Slovakia, the school that never sees your grades

Real talk: this is the route that rescues the most results-day mornings, because UPJŠ does not score your A-levels. At all. Per the university's own admissions pages, entry to the Faculty of Medicine is decided by one written test, and the Dean admits based on your result in that test and the number of applicants. Your secondary-school grades are not part of the scoring. No subject requirements, no grade minimum, no UCAS, no personal statement, and our applicants aren't asked for IELTS either.

The exam itself: 100 biology and 100 chemistry questions, 2 hours 30 minutes, each question worth 0 to 4 points, 800 points maximum. It's sat in English, in Košice, and the exam fee is €30 paid straight to the university (our help is free, always). Sittings have been running all through the summer, and the next one is 5 September 2026 in Košice. That's a bit over three weeks from today, which is genuinely enough time to prepare if you start now. Registering through Medently is free and usually possible until about a week before the sitting, so you've got room to breathe while you decide.

Now the honesty bit, because I'd rather you hear it from me than find out in September. UPJŠ publishes that the pass mark for General Medicine and Dental Medicine is 'usually 75%', which is around 600 of 800 points. And from our own placement work this June: a student scored 609/800 and was refused for Dental Medicine. The dentistry cut sits noticeably higher than medicine, where around 570 has been enough. So the target isn't 'scrape 600'. The target is to land well clear of 610. One more reason to take it seriously: you can only sit the exam once per admission year per programme, so the 5 September paper is the one to prepare for properly, not to wing.

The good news is that this exam is unusually fair to prepare for. UPJŠ publishes the official question set the paper is drawn from, 600 biology and 600 chemistry questions, with 100 per subject selected for each sitting. We've turned that official set into a free question bank with 599 biology and 594 chemistry questions, and three weeks of honest daily work through it is exactly how our students who passed did it. No secret technique, just reps on the actual material.

What you're playing for: the 5-year English Dental Medicine programme (MDDr.), which UPJŠ runs as a five-year degree from the 2025/26 intake onwards. Tuition is €13,500 per year for the 2026/27 cohort under the Rector's fee decision, and that fee is locked for your entire degree once you enrol. Pass on 5 September and you're a dental student in Košice this autumn, in the same academic year your school friends start. Not a gap year. This autumn. We've written a full guide to studying dentistry in Slovakia in English if you want the deep version.

Route 2: grades actually decent? RSU in Riga, Latvia and the February intake

Maybe your morning wasn't a disaster, just not the A*AA kind of morning. If you're holding a strong grade in Biology or Chemistry, Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) in Riga, Latvia deserves a serious look, because there is no entrance exam at all. Admission is a scored document competition, decided on specific parts of your file. Your overall average is never used, which surprises almost everyone I say it to.

What RSU actually scores, straight from its admissions procedure:

• Biology or Chemistry: at least one is required, and RSU's own site puts the Dentistry bar at 80% of the top grade in that subject. The admissions procedure says priority goes to applicants who have both sciences, so if you do, say so loudly.
• Maths or Physics: one of them, and RSU explicitly names the UK case where Physics can stand in for Maths.
• English at B2: UK-taught students need no test at all — RSU exempts anyone whose secondary education was completed in English, and may ask your school for a letter confirming the language of instruction. And a practical tip from our placement work: don't upload an English test you don't need, because once a test result is in your file, that's what gets scored.
• Motivation letter and two references: both are genuinely scored, not decoration. Write the letter yourself, in your own voice, and pick referees who actually know your work.
• The basics: three A-levels and three GCSEs passed.

Timing is the clever part. RSU's February intake takes documents from UK applicants between 1 September and 1 December 2026, with studies beginning on 2 February 2027. Apply early, though: files are assessed as they arrive. That's a five-month runway from today, not a thirteen-month one, and you'd still finish your degree years before a resit-and-reapply classmate.

The degree is a 5-year Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS), a Master's-level qualification at EQF level 7, at €15,500 per year. One number to respect: RSU plans 64 international dentistry admissions for 2026/27, and 32 of them are in the February intake, so strong, early files win. We've covered the whole route in our Riga dentistry guide, and the two-minute version of 'do my grades clear the bar' is exactly what our UK grades checker was built for.

Route 3: UPOL in Olomouc, Czech Republic, honestly a next-intake play

I'm going to be straight with you here, because this is where a less honest article would blur things. Palacký University Olomouc is a brilliant dentistry option, and it is not a 2026 option. This year's dentistry seats are gone — the English programme admits roughly 20 students a year, and later exam passers ended up on a waiting list. It's tiny, and it fills.

So why is it still on this list? Because if you're the planning type, UPOL has one of the most forgiving entry files in Europe: three A-levels in any subjects (they've told us in writing that sciences are not required), no grade minimum, their own online entrance test in biology, chemistry and physics or maths, plus a short Zoom interview. Applications for the next intake open on 1 November. The degree is a 5-year MDDr. at €14,000 per year, and like UPJŠ, the fee you enrol on is the fee you keep for the whole course.

The smart play if Olomouc appeals to you: sit the UPJŠ exam on 5 September for a this-autumn start, and keep UPOL warm as your next-cycle option. That way the waiting is a choice, not a sentence.

Staying in the UK: resits, gateway years and the longer roads

Balance time, because for some of you the UK route genuinely is the right call, and I'd be a poor big brother if I pretended otherwise.

• Resit and reapply: a full extra cycle with a fresh UCAT. If one subject collapsed on exam day and everything else in your application was strong, this is a legitimate road. Just go in knowing it costs twelve-plus months and carries no guarantee at the end.
• Gateway and pre-dental foundation years: Bristol, Manchester, Dundee and Cardiff all run a foundation year for applicants without the required A-levels, and gateway routes carry contextual offers around BBB to BBC. The catch is the word 'contextual': most have eligibility criteria around your school and background, so check them before you build a plan on one.
• Graduate-entry dentistry: a bioscience degree first, then BDS. It works, people do it, and it's roughly eight years to qualification. The longest road on this page.
• Dental hygiene and dental therapy: real clinical careers in their own right, not consolation prizes, and for some people honestly a better fit than the BDS chase. Worth a proper look on NHS Health Careers before you dismiss it.

None of these are bad options. They're just all measured in years, while the two routes at the top of this page are measured in weeks.

Can I come back and work in the UK? The GDC part, honestly

First, the thing half the internet gets wrong: dentists register with the General Dental Council (GDC), not the GMC. The GMC is for doctors, and any article that mixes the two up hasn't done its homework.

Here's where it actually stands. The GDC currently recognises EEA-qualified dentists under what it describes as a near-automatic system: qualifications listed in Annex V, point V.3 of EU Directive 2005/36/EC, which is the dental practitioners annex that degrees like UPJŠ's and RSU's sit under. The UK Government reviewed these standstill provisions in 2023 and extended them for five years, to around mid-2028, and eligibility doesn't depend on your nationality or where you live.

Now the honest part. If you start in 2026, you graduate around 2031, which is beyond the current extension window. Nobody, including us, can promise you what the recognition rules will look like then, and anyone who tells you UK registration is 'automatic forever' is overselling. What I can tell you is the permanent backstop that exists regardless: the GDC's Overseas Registration Exam (a Part 1 knowledge test and a Part 2 practical clinical exam), or the Licence in Dental Surgery. Thousands of internationally qualified dentists join the UK register through those doors. And remember the other side of the coin: your degree is recognised across the EU and EEA, Norway included, under the directive itself, so the UK is one door among thirty, not the only exit. We've unpacked the whole recognition question in this dedicated guide.

The map and the money

Here's the whole picture on one screen.

Route	Starts	What counts
UPJŠ, Slovakia	Sept 2026	One exam, 800 pts
RSU, Latvia	Feb 2027	Bio/Chem grade + file
UPOL, Czechia	Sept 2027	Own online exam
UK resit/gateway	Sept 2027	New A-levels + UCAT

And the money, with no asterisks:

• UPJŠ, Slovakia: €13,500 a year, five years, €67,500 in total tuition for the MDDr.
• UPOL, Czech Republic: €14,000 a year, five years, €70,000 in total for the MDDr.
• RSU, Latvia: €15,500 a year, five years, €77,500 in tuition for the DDS, plus a one-off €1,800 registration fee.
• Locked fees: at UPJŠ and UPOL, the annual fee you enrol on never rises during your studies, so those totals are real totals, not estimates.
• What Medently costs you: nothing. The only fee in the whole UPJŠ process is the €30 exam fee, and that goes to the university, not to us.

FAQ

Can I still start dentistry this year (2026) after results day?

Yes. UPJŠ in Košice, Slovakia has an entrance-exam sitting on 5 September 2026 and doesn't score A-level grades at all. Pass the biology and chemistry test and you begin the 5-year English MDDr. programme this autumn, and registering through Medently is free.

Do European dental schools look at A-level grades?

It varies by school. UPJŠ in Slovakia ignores them completely, with one 800-point written exam deciding admission. RSU in Riga, Latvia has no entrance exam and instead scores your Biology or Chemistry grade, a motivation letter and two references for the February intake. UPOL in the Czech Republic accepts any three A-level subjects and runs its own online test.

Are European dental degrees recognised by the GDC?

EEA dental qualifications listed in Annex V.3 of Directive 2005/36/EC are currently recognised by the GDC under a near-automatic system, with the standstill provisions extended to around mid-2028. Beyond that the rules may change, so it's never 'automatic forever', and the ORE or LDS exams remain the permanent route onto the UK register.

Is dentistry harder to get into than medicine?

Generally yes, because dentistry seats are scarcer everywhere. At UPJŠ the dentistry cut sits above the medicine one: 609/800 was refused for Dental Medicine in June 2026, while around 570 has been enough for General Medicine, so dentistry applicants should aim well clear of 610.

One rough morning is not your career

Ten years from now, nobody in your practice waiting room will know or care what happened on 13 August 2026. They'll know you as their dentist. Between now and then there's a version of this story where today was the day everything wobbled, and a version where today was the day you found out that two of your three realistic routes never cared about your A-levels in the first place. Same morning. Very different stories.

If you want a human to think it through with, that's literally what we're here for. It's free, it's run by students who've sat where you're sitting, and there isn't a panicked dentistry question we haven't heard this summer. Bring yours.