Allocation to a Foundation School

Applicants will be allocated to a foundation school on the date published in the application timeline. Applicants will receive a notification email from Oriel (which will be sent to the email address that is registered on their account) with the details of their allocation.

Applicants can also view their allocation result directly on Oriel by logging in to their account. Applicants should check their junk/spam folder within their email account if they cannot find the notification email in their main inbox

Applicants are allocated to a foundation school, group and programme in Oriel via the Preference Informed Allocation (PIA) method.

Applicants who applied for the Foundation Programme in a previous recruitment round (including FP 2024) but did not start in post, do not have any part of their application carried over from a previous round. This includes the computer generated rank that is assigned to them in Oriel. This is not reused again in future recruitment rounds (applicants receive a new computer generated rank).

The same PIA allocation method which was introduced for FP 2024 will be used for FP 2025. There has been no change made to this process.

Preference informed allocation has been designed to give as many applicants as possible their first choice of Foundation School. The PIA allocation method was introduced in 2024 following an engagement process in 2023. Further information on the stakeholder engagement process and the outcomes can be found on this website page.

Every eligible applicant who remains in the Foundation Programme application process after allocation to FPP programmes (and SFP pathway 1 programmes for England), will be given a computer-generated rank by the Oriel system. The ranking will not be informed by performance at medical school.

The ranks will be generated when the allocation algorithm is run in Oriel. This takes place after Foundation School preferencing has closed and at the point that applicants are allocated to Foundation School.

The same computer-generated rank used for allocation to a foundation school will be used when allocating applicants at the group/programme match stage. Applicants will not receive a new rank for group or programme matching.  The same rank will be used at all stages.

The rank that is generated for applicants for the main Foundation Programme will not be used during the Foundation Priority Programme (FPP) application and offer process. It also won’t be used for the Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP) pathway 1 selection process in England, nor by the Scotland and Northern Ireland foundation schools in their SFP selection processes

Can I find out what my rank is?
The computer-generated rank that applicants receive is not visible on Oriel to applicants and will not be made available to applicants at any stage of the allocation process.

The Oriel application system will use an algorithm that will work through the list of applicants in computer-generated rank order. This will happen in two passes through the system.

Pass 1 – First choice foundation school allocation only
The algorithm will work through the applicant list in computer-generated rank order. If there are places available in an applicant’s first choice foundation school, they will be allocated a place in that foundation school. If no places are available in their first choice foundation school, that individual applicant will be skipped over and the algorithm will continue to work through the full list of applicants, giving as many as possible their first preference. It will do this until it reaches the end of the applicant list.

Pass 2 – Allocating unplaced applicants
Next, the algorithm will again work through the applicant list in computer-generated rank order. Any unplaced applicants will be allocated a place in their highest preferenced foundation school which still has available places.  It will do this until it reaches the end of the applicant list.

Two flowcharts have been produced to explain how the two pass allocation algorithm works in Oriel. The document opens as a PDF.

The process of application linking in PIA will work as follows:
Applicants can request to link their application to another applicant by selecting this option when completing the application form on Oriel (refer to linking guidance).

The rank of the lower ranking applicant will be used to allocate both linked applicants to a foundation school (and in some cases to group as well, if used by the foundation school). When the allocation process is run on Oriel, during the first pass, the applicant with the higher rank will be skipped over.

When the allocation algorithm gets to the lower ranked applicant of the pair, if it is possible to place both linked applicants in their first-choice foundation school then both applicants will be placed. If it is not possible to place both applicants in their first-choice foundation school (because all places are taken by higher ranked applicants) then both applicants are skipped.

On the second pass, the applicant with the higher rank will again be skipped over. When the allocation algorithm gets to the lower ranked applicant of the pair it will attempt to allocate them a place in their highest preferenced foundation school that has two places available.

If none of the foundation schools still have two places available, the link will be broken and the whole allocation
process will begin again for all applicants. Both applications will then be processed as unlinked applications.

Refer to the PIA flowcharts to see how the process will work for applicants.

The FPP application process also uses a computer-generated rank for applicants. This is a different rank from the one generated for the main Foundation Programme. Offers for FPPs will be made based on the computer-generated rank and FPP programme preferences.

During the stakeholder engagement exercise, modelling data for both the allocation based on the total FP score and the new PIA were presented. This data was taken from the 2022 Foundation Programme recruitment process and used preferencing data from that cohort.

The outcomes for PIA each year will depend on the applicant preferencing behaviour in the system for that given year. For example, if a school has 1,000 places and 3,000 applicants choose to list it as their first preference, then a relatively lower percentage of applicants will receive their first-choice allocation.

The UKFPO will work with its stakeholders to monitor the outcomes of the new Preference Informed Allocation process carefully and implement agreed changes in future years where necessary.

After allocation to foundation schools has taken place, applicants are required to preference groups and then programmes. Applicants will be matched to a group and programme according to preference and PIA rank.

Refer to the How to Apply on Oriel guide for information about how to preference foundation schools on Oriel and complete all sections of the national application form on Oriel.