Admissions · 14 min read

Which PCE subjects to choose for Medicine

It is the decision that hands out the most points and the one most people make blind, months before the exam and without realising they are making it. Only your two best weighted subjects count, but that does not mean you should sit two.

There is a conversation I repeat almost every week. Someone writes to me with their PCE marks already published, good marks, asking why they are not enough for Medicine. We look together at which subjects they sat, and the same thing always appears: they studied the wrong subjects very hard.

It is not an effort problem. It is an information problem, and it can be solved entirely in one afternoon if you know where to look.

What a weighting is and why it decides everything

Your admission score goes up to 14 points. The first ten come from the UNEDasiss accreditation, which converts your school record to the Spanish scale. The remaining four come from the PCE.

Every subject you pass in the PCE carries a weighting coefficient that depends on three things at once: the subject, the degree you want to enter, and the university. That coefficient can be 0.2 or 0.1, and the difference between them is literally double.

Only your two best weighted subjects count. Two subjects weighted 0.2 with a 10 in each give the full 4 points. Two weighted 0.1 with a 10 in each give 2 points, and your ceiling drops from 14 to 12.

Twelve points, in Medicine, means being left out of every public faculty. And the painful part is that this ceiling is fixed the day you choose your subjects, many months before you know what marks you will get.

The backbone: Biology and Chemistry

If you are going for Medicine, these two are the backbone. Biology and Chemistry are weighted at 0.2 for Medicine at practically every Spanish university. I do not know of a case where it does not pay to take them.

There is also a reason beyond the arithmetic: these are the subjects you will need in your first year of the degree. Biochemistry, physiology and cell biology in first year Medicine assume you arrive with that foundation. Preparing them properly for the PCE is not time invested in an exam alone, it is time invested in not drowning in December of your first year.

So the question is not whether to take Biology and Chemistry. It is what to add afterwards.

The third, fourth and fifth

The usual candidates are Maths II and Physics. Both are weighted 0.2 for Medicine in several regions, but not in all of them, and that is the nuance to settle before you enrol in anything.

In Valencia, Murcia and Extremadura, for example, Maths II, Biology, Chemistry and Physics tend to be weighted high for health degrees. In the Basque Country and Navarre the list is narrower and concentrates on Biology and Chemistry.

That means the same subject, with the same mark, can be worth two points at one university and one at another. It is not a detail: it is the difference between getting in and not getting in.

There is a third option many people overlook: a second foreign language or a humanities subject may be weighted 0.1 for your target degree. It will not get you to the ceiling, but it works as a safety net if one of the big subjects goes wrong, and it is usually far more manageable to prepare in a short time.

Why it changes by region

In Spain, responsibility for university education is shared between the central government and the regions. Each region, and in some cases each university, publishes its own weighting table for each degree.

The practical consequence is awkward but manageable: there is no single table valid for the whole of Spain. The general summaries circulating online, including this article, are there to orient you, not to decide for you.

What does exist is a reliable way to check. Go to the website of every university you plan to apply to, find the weighting table for the relevant academic year for the Medicine degree, and note the coefficient of each subject you are considering. With four or five universities you will have a clear pattern in under an hour.

And a warning about timing: those tables are published ahead of the admission process, but they can change from one year to the next. Last year's orients you; yours is the one that counts.

How many to sit: the probability calculation

Here is the question that causes the most confusion. If only the two best count, why recommend four, five or six?

Because you are not adding points, you are buying security.

Think of it this way. An exam can go badly for reasons that have nothing to do with what you know: an odd question, a mental block, a bad night, a demanding examiner. If you sit exactly two subjects and one goes wrong, your ceiling falls from 14 to 12 and there is nothing to be done until the next session.

If you sit five, you only need two to go well. And statistically, five attempts to land two is a far more comfortable position than two attempts to land two.

The break even point for most people is four or five. Six starts to be counterproductive: every added subject divides your study time, and arriving at six half prepared exams is worse than arriving at four thoroughly prepared ones.

There is one exception. If one of the extra subjects is something you already command, a language you speak at home for instance, the real cost of adding it is close to zero and the safety net comes free.

Three combinations and the ceiling of each one

The arithmetic is far easier to grasp with names and numbers on the table. These three cases are composites of situations I see repeatedly, with the sums done on an accreditation worth 8 points on the school record side, which is a good mark but not an extraordinary one.

Case one: the short bet. She sits Biology and Chemistry, both weighted at 0.2 at her target university. She gets 9 in Biology and 6.5 in Chemistry, because on exam day Chemistry came with an equilibrium section she had not worked through. That adds 1.8 plus 1.3, so 3.1 points. Admission score: 11.1. She gets into no public Medicine faculty, and she has no other subject that could replace the one that went wrong.

Case two: the combination with a safety net. He sits Biology, Chemistry, Maths II and Physics. He gets 9 in Biology, 6.5 in Chemistry, 8.5 in Maths II and 7 in Physics. All four are weighted at 0.2 at his university, so the system takes the best two: Biology and Maths II. That adds 1.8 plus 1.7, so 3.5 points. Admission score: 11.5. Same student, same bad day in Chemistry, four tenths more on his score purely for having sat two additional subjects.

Case three: effort pointed the wrong way. She sits Biology, Chemistry, History and a second foreign language. She scores high in all four: 8.5, 8, 9.5 and 9. But History and the language are weighted at 0.1 for Medicine at her university, so those two excellent marks are worth 0.95 and 0.9 points, less than a decent pass in a subject weighted at 0.2. The system takes Biology and Chemistry: 1.7 plus 1.6, so 3.3 points. Admission score: 11.3, with two subjects studied thoroughly that counted for nothing.

All three worked similarly hard. What separates them is not effort but a decision taken months earlier, in a single afternoon, in front of a weightings table.

The right order of decisions

Almost everyone does this backwards. They choose subjects by preference or by how easy they look, prepare for months, and only then look at which universities fit what they have. It is the longest road to a mediocre score.

The order that works is this:

1. Settle your list of target universities. Between four and eight, mixing a demanding one with a more accessible one. If you do not know where to start, look at last year's cutoff marks.
2. Download the weighting table for each one for the Medicine degree.
3. Mark the subjects weighted 0.2 at all or almost all of them. That intersection is your compulsory core.
4. Add one or two more weighted 0.2 at most of them, prioritising those you are best at.
5. Only then start studying.

This whole process takes an afternoon. That afternoon is often worth more than three extra months of study.

Resitting to raise your score

If a subject comes out worse than expected, it is not final. You can sit it again in a later session, and the best mark obtained in each subject is the one taken into account, so resitting can never lower what you already had.

This opens up a strategy few people use: sitting the early session without having prepared everything to the limit, seeing what the exams are really like, and coming back better prepared for the next one. The first session then works as a rehearsal with a safety net.

The constraint to keep in mind is the validity of your UNEDasiss accreditation, which lasts two years. Within that window you have room to manoeuvre; outside it you have to redo the process.

When to sit the exams and how it fits with admission

Choosing the right subjects is worth nothing if you arrive late. The process has three pieces that run in sequence, and each one depends on the previous being closed in time.

The first is the UNEDasiss accreditation. It is the document that translates your school record into the Spanish scale, and without it nothing else can move. You apply for it well ahead of the academic year you want to start, and it requires documentation from your own country already legalised and translated, which is exactly the part that drags on. If you are coming from Syria, Oman, Morocco or the Gulf, count in weeks, not days, to gather the paperwork.

The second is the PCE sessions. There are two per year, one in spring and one in early summer. The first leaves you room to resit in the second if something goes wrong; the second leaves you room for nothing. Sitting only the late session means betting the whole year on a single throw.

The third is university preregistration. Each region opens its own window and waits for nobody. If your mark arrives after a university has closed its window, that university drops off your list even if your score was comfortably enough.

The practical reading is simple: the work of deciding subjects is best finished the autumn before the year you want to start. Not because the studying takes that long, but because documentation, deadlines and the option of resitting all need that margin. Exact dates change every year and are published by each body, so put yours in a calendar the moment they appear.

The mistakes that cost the most points

1. Choosing subjects before universities. This is the root error from which almost all the others follow.
2. Trusting a general table found online. The one that counts is the one each university publishes for your academic year.
3. Sitting only two subjects. With no margin for error, one average exam closes the door for a whole year.
4. Sitting seven or eight. You spread your study until none of them is solid, and you pay every fee.
5. Choosing a subject only because it looks easy. If it is weighted 0.1, an outstanding mark in it is worth less than a decent pass in one weighted 0.2.
6. Preparing the PCE with Spanish domestic exam material. They look alike, but the format and the syllabus do not match exactly.

How to prepare each subject

Three things that matter more than whichever method you use.

Technical vocabulary in Spanish. If you studied science in Arabic or in English, you know the concept but you may not know the word. In a Biology exam in Spanish, failing to recognise the term in a question you actually master is losing points to translation, not to knowledge. It is worth building your own glossary from day one. These are the words I most often see cost people marks:

These look like minor details and they are not. A question that opens with calcula el rendimiento takes two minutes if you know what it is asking, and stays blank if you think you are being asked something else.

Past exam papers. UNED publishes solved exam models from previous years. They are the most useful material there is, because they teach you the format, the type of question and the level of detail expected. Start with those, not with the syllabus.

The calendar. Prepare your subjects in parallel, not in sequence. Studying Biology thoroughly for three months and then Chemistry for another three means arriving at the Biology exam with three months of forgetting behind you.

Frequently asked questions

Which PCE subjects are best for Medicine?

Biology and Chemistry are the backbone, weighted 0.2 at practically every university. Beyond those, Maths II or Physics depending on what is weighted where you will apply.

How many subjects should I sit?

Four or five is the balance for most people. Only the two best count, but sitting more protects you from a bad day without spreading your study too thin.

What does a weighting of 0.2 mean?

Your mark is multiplied by 0.2 and added to your admission score. A 10 adds 2 points. Two such subjects reach the maximum of 4 additional points.

Are weightings the same across Spain?

No. Biology and Chemistry are weighted high almost everywhere, but Physics and Maths II vary by region and university. Check each institution's table.

Can I resit to raise my score?

Yes. You can sit again in a later session and the best mark in each subject is taken, so resitting cannot hurt you. Your UNEDasiss accreditation lasts two years.

Do I have to pass every subject I sit?

For a subject to be weighted and add to your score, it has to be passed. A failed subject does not subtract from your admission score, it simply does not add.

How far in advance do I have to decide my subjects?

Ideally the autumn before the academic year you want to start. Not because of study time, but because the UNEDasiss accreditation requires legalised documentation from your country, there are two exam sessions a year, and you want to keep the option of resitting in the second one.

To see how this fits into your total score, read Medicine cutoff marks in Spain. And if you want to run the numbers before choosing a city, here is the real cost of studying Medicine in Spain.

Published 19 September 2026 · Salam Aiach