Booking ORE Part 1: what actually happens on the day places open

Why this is worth preparing for

Booking is not a ballot and it is not a queue you can join late. After priority candidates are placed, the GDC books the rest on a first-come, first-served basis. Every part of the process below has caught people out, and the cost of losing a window is not the £485 — it is the eight weeks until the next one, against a five-year clock.

The two payment deadlines are not the same thing

This is the single most misread part of the process, because the GDC's booking page states both. They apply at different stages.

Read the one-hour rule as the operative one on the day. Have the card you intend to pay with in front of you before 14:30, and make sure it is one that will authorise an international payment in sterling without a call to your bank. A card that needs a verification step you cannot complete in time is the same as no card.

How the account behaves

Three rules in MyGDC decide what you can and cannot do while the window is open, and two of them punish exactly the tactics people reach for.

• One device at a time. The GDC states that if you are already signed in and try to sign in on another device or a new browser window, you "will receive a message and be automatically logged out". Opening the site on a phone as a backup while your laptop is loading will sign the laptop out.
• Fifteen minutes of inactivity signs you out. If you sign in at 14:00 and then wait, you may be signed out before the window opens.
• An error message usually means it is full. The GDC says so plainly: "If you see an error message, this usually means that the exam is now full." It does not always mean the system has broken.

Who gets a place before you do

Two groups are placed ahead of the general list, and both are told separately — the GDC says priority candidates "will receive a separate email from us with details of how to secure a place."

• Candidates approaching the five-year limit. You must pass Part 2 within five years of first attempting Part 1, and the GDC reserves priority places so that those near the end of that period get an opportunity to finish.
• Dental professionals with refugee status, for up to two attempts at each part.

If you are in either group and have not had that email, ask before the window rather than after it. Nothing about the general booking process will rescue a priority place you were never offered.

What to do on the day

1. Sign in to MyGDC well before 14:30, then keep the session alive — the fifteen-minute inactivity timer is real.
2. Use one device, one browser window. No second tab, no phone as backup.
3. Have your card ready and know it will clear a sterling payment without a callback.
4. When the window opens, work through the booking without pausing. The one-hour payment rule starts when you book, not when you finish reading.
5. If you see an error, take a screenshot with the time visible before you retry. If money leaves your account without a confirmation, that screenshot is your evidence.
6. Check for a confirmation email. Do not assume a payment that left your account is a booking — in June, several were not.

If it goes wrong

The GDC's own instruction is direct: "If you were attempting to book and pay for a place and ran into difficulties, please contact the Examinations team." Do that the same day, not the following week, and include the screenshots, the time, and your bank's record of the payment if one was taken.

Do not cancel the card payment before you have established whether a place was booked. A reversed payment against a valid booking is a harder problem to unpick than an unmatched payment against no booking.

If you do not get a place

The next Part 1 sittings after October are 2–3 February 2027 and 6–7 April 2027, each with 600 places. Booking opens eight weeks before a sitting, at 14:30 UK time.

The GDC does not pretend this is comfortable. Its own guidance says it "can take several years to pass the ORE if you are not able to secure a place immediately or you do not pass on your first attempt." If your five-year deadline is close enough that a missed window matters, that is the point to raise priority access, not after the next one has gone.

What we are not telling you

We have no advance knowledge of how quickly the October window will fill, and no way to improve your odds beyond being ready when it opens. Nobody selling ORE preparation does. The GDC does not publish the Part 1 pass mark, and it states plainly that it does not quality assure, endorse or recommend any ORE preparation course — including ours.