Embodiments of the present invention provide a scheduling method, a data transmission method, and an apparatus, and relate to the field of communications technologies, so as to resolve a problem that an existing LTE system does not support a new type of terminal. The scheduling method includes: sending, by a base station, downlink control information DCI to a first-type terminal, where the DCI includes scheduling information used to instruct the first-type terminal to send uplink data by using a first-mode frame format; the first-mode frame format includes at least one uplink subframe, and each uplink subframe includes at least one first-mode frame format symbol; and duration of the first-mode frame format symbol is at least four times of duration of a second-mode frame format symbol, and the second-mode frame format symbol is a single carrier frequency division multiple access SC-FDMA symbol in an LTE system.