Every eligible applicant who remains in the Foundation Programme application process 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 date that allocation to a foundation school takes place will be confirmed in the application timeline.
Applicants are allocated to a foundation school and programme in Oriel via the Preference Informed Allocation (PIA) method. Information about how PIA works can be found in the the UKFP 2024 Applicant Guide to Allocation. A copy of this guide will soon be available for UKFP 2025.
Applicants who applied for the Foundation Programme in a previous recruitment round (including FP 2024) but did not start in post, will not be disadvantaged or affected in any way if they choose to apply in a future recruitment round. Re-application will have no bearing on an applicant’s allocation to a foundation school via PIA nor on their computer-generated rank. No part of an application from a previous recruitment round is carried over.
Matching to a Foundation Programme
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 rank. The process will follow a national timeline, which will be published in due course in the application timeline.
Refer to the How to Apply on Oriel guide for information about how to preference foundation schools, groups and programmes on Oriel.