The Sunday Times’ Good University Guide 2026 revealing that the University of Edinburgh’s lowest ranking course for student teaching satisfaction was Medicine.
Just 66.2 per cent of medical students surveyed reported satisfaction with the quality of teaching, against an average of 78.3 per cent across the 46 University of Edinburgh programmes reported.
Speaking to The Student, a second year medical student commented:
“Some issues raised in last year’s Open Forum have already been amended, such as the switch from Problem Based Learning to Group Based Learning. This has been much more relevant to the course content, and, in comparison to last year, has greatly improved my clinical skills.”
She went on to say:
“Current medical students in years 1-3 do not have an official ‘Medical School’ building. Instead, we are scattered across various campuses and can spend a lot of time travelling between sites. Although there is a project in the works, it will be incomplete when I graduate which is disappointing, and I am surprised that there isn’t already a building for this purpose.”
The school’s ranking contrasts starkly with Veterinary Medicine, comparable in terms of workload, stress and complexity, whose student satisfaction is at the other end of the scale: 90.7 per cent, the highest of all programmes reported.
Incidentally, the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine is situated on the Easter Bush campus, which has “the largest concentration of animal science related expertise anywhere in Europe”.
The Student reached out to the Medical School for comment but did not receive a response.
The University itself was ranked 25th overall, down eight places from last year.
This puts it below neighbouring Scottish universities, St Andrews (2), Strathclyde (11), Glasgow (22), Aberdeen and Dundee (=23).
Illustration by Isobel Macdonald Powney