The BMAT exam is being replaced by the UCAT at all UK universities: what might this mean for you?

In previous years, many students with strong UCAT scores have chosen to avoid sitting the BMAT exam. One reason for this has just been to avoid the extra work/hassle of sitting a second exam. In addition, since the BMAT exam took place after university applications had been made through UCAS, students did not know their scores prior to applying. This meant that applications were made somewhat blindly and it was not as possible to apply strategically to BMAT universities. 

Now, this is no longer an issue, and it is probable that many applicants will be driven to choose Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial/UCL who may have previously selected places like King’s College London/Edinburgh/Manchester/Bristol as their top choices. Many applicants may also self-select for these newly-turned-UCAT-universities and only choose to apply if they feel that they have a high score. High requirements at Imperial/UCL/Oxford/Cambridge are undoubtedly expected.

This is going to be the first year that scores are differentiated at the top end: in the past, it didn't really matter beyond a certain point whether you scored 2950, 3100 or even 3470 - that may begin to change this year! This is a similar trend to what we've already been seeing for Australian UCAT universities, that often have exceptionally high UCAT cut-off scores. The high UCAT requirements are going to be particularly significant for international applicants to UK medical schools. For instance, 2023 statistics for international applicants to Oxford University noted that only 35 applicants were shortlisted for interview out of the 295 that applied! At these levels of competition, I would be inclined to expect a UCAT cut off that is well over 3000(+) for international students. (FYI: in the year I'm quoting statistics for, only 9 were then offered: a success rate of ~3% is crazy!) 

On the one hand, students will now have a UCAT score in hand when applying to places like Oxford/Cambridge, while this was not previously the case with the BMAT exam. 

However, the counterargument is that in the first year of this change, students will not know what a safe/strategic score to apply is for ex-BMAT universities, since there is no data from past years. There will likely be some degree of guesswork involved as to what will equate to a competitive score. Any company or individual who claims to know ‘for sure’ is misleading you - even the universities do not know yet! Of course, myself and others will still aim to predict and guide as to cut off scores based on historical experience. 

Scoring and preparing well for the UCAT is now more important than ever, since there is not the added recourse of a BMAT sitting in October/early November. We may begin to see similar trends to the UCAT ANZ in Australia/New Zealand, where students currently tend to prepare for several months on average. Read our article here on "when is the best time to begin UCAT preparation". In summary, to avoid exhaustion, I would caution against starting any intensive preparation too early in the cycle, but it is helpful to begin to familiarise yourself with the different sorts of questions found on the UCAT exam with the (free) resources on the UCAT website. In order to avoid stress as the exam approaches, it is beneficial to begin relatively early with thinking about areas of strength/weakness and strategies/how you may wish to approach different question types. 

The UCAT exam is booked by candidates themselves on a date of their choosing. This is an advantage over the BMAT, which was only sat on one specific day by the whole country, and so couldn't accommodate students' personal circumstances (e.g. illness/different preparation timescales/needing to work part time over a period of summer). Delaying the UCAT examination until the last week of August/first week of September is advised, to maximise the amount of time that can be dedicated to preparation. Unlike in previous years, there is no need to leave time towards the end of the summer holidays to prepare for a second exam. The UCAT should be sat before beginning school in Y13, as balancing UCAT preparation with schoolwork can be tricky.

Research on 5,000+ school leaver UCAT candidates by Kulkarni et al., 2022 noted a degree of socio-economic patterning that influenced UCAT performance. However, this was considered to be to a lesser extent than other school examinations. 

"Studies have suggested that the inherent biases associated with the school examinations taken by UK school leavers (pupils from White and professional social-class backgrounds and attending independent or academically selective (‘grammar’) schools tend to do best) also exist for UCAT performance albeit the biases may be reduced. Further, males have been shown to perform better than females on the cognitive components of the UCAT with the reverse noted for the SJT element.”

Remember that the UCAT is not unique in being a flawed metric - there are equally disadvantages associated with using any other mechanism to select applicants such as GCSEs/A levels/personal statement/interview.  

Since applicants are now sitting only one exam, there is more time available after the UCAT is finished to dedicate to A levels and interviews. This is certainly a good thing, though bear in mind that all applicants will be taking advantage of it, and so average interview performance will likely increase across the board! Most significant impacts will be on universities that interview candidates early in the cycle (Oxford and Cambridge are included here). Interview overpreparation may take lead to answers appearing rehearsed. This can be avoided by planning out themes to discuss/bullet points rather than verbatim answers to regurgitate. 

As an aside, in past years, some Oxford/Cambridge colleges did use the BMAT after interview to varying extents in determining who ultimately receives offers. This may not happen to the same extent with the UCAT. It is my prediction that the interview will be weighted to a greater extent at Oxbridge post-interview now that the admissions exam lacks a scientific component. 

Oxford & Cambridge are universities with a strong focus on research and the foundational medical sciences, exemplified by the traditional course structure and rigid pre-clinical/clinical split. This has meant that they’ve always preferred to hold an admissions test which does consider elements of science (that relates to the actual medical course). University of Oxford has held data from the last couple of years that demonstrates that performance in Section 2 of the BMAT exam (science section) is a valid predictor for performance on the medical course - i.e. those who do well on BMAT science are likely to also do well at Oxford on average, and hence use of the exam to shortlist would be justified.  Until very recently, such data did not exist for the UCAT exam. 

Until quite recently, reluctance towards the UCAT has been because: 

1. There was insufficient evidence to show that UCAT performance is a valid predictor of performance on the medical course. 

2. Since the UCAT exam does not contain science, which is otherwise a big part of actually studying Medicine at Oxford. 

So then why have they ended up changing their minds?

1. After Cambridge University joined all other UK universities to announce a switch to the UCAT exam, it would be challenging for Oxford to stand alone in offering a new, independent admissions test. This would discourage applicants from applying/sitting the exam on the basis of additional workload and few resources, potentially leading to many students that would otherwise choose Oxford now not applying. 

This was a key factor in encouraging Oxford to go for the UCAT

2. If a new test was introduced, this also would not have predictive validity, since there would be no data to say whether this would or wouldn’t have any correlation to performance on the medical course either!

Perhaps the most significant factor:  

3. Oxford University has received evidence to say that, similarly to the BMAT, the UCAT likely also has predictive validity for selecting students that will go on to succeed at medical school.

In addition to logistical factors:

4. Designing a whole new admissions test from scratch is exceptionally expensive & time consuming, something that any university would understandably choose to avoid. In fact, this was the whole reason why the BMAT was abolished (wasn’t viable financially speaking to run that test). 

5. Oxford University’s contract with Tata Consultancy Services (who were due to host the BMAT replacement) has been terminated following candidates facing a variety of technical issues. It would have been an additional challenge to find a new partner company to run the digital side of test administration at short notice.