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The interim 2025 UCAT scores contain data from the start of the 2025 testing period up to 14th September. By this point, 21,822 candidates had taken the test. It is anticipated that a further 21,000 candidates will take the test before the end of the testing period.
The UCAT website emphasises that: ‘Candidates should use these figures as a rough guide to judge their own performance as these numbers will change as the testing cycle progresses.’ Final data will be released after testing ends.
In the interim results for 2025, the total mean UCAT score is 1913.
The interim mean scores for each section are:
Verbal Reasoning – 614
Decision Making – 642
Quantitative Reasoning – 683
When you compare this to last year’s interim UCAT scores, the interim scores for all areas of the test see an increase. Verbal reasoning increased slightly from 612 to 614 but decision making and quantitative reasoning saw bigger jumps, by 7 points and 17 points respectively.
The interim results for Situational Judgement are:
25% scored in Band 1
40% scored in Band 2
27% scored in Band 3
8% scored in Band 4
Last year there was a significant drop in the percentage of students scoring in the top bands for SJT. However, scores have returned this year to something approaching a historical average.
The percentage scoring in band 1 has increased from 14% to 25% (close to the 27% in 2023) and band 2 has increased slightly from 38% to 40%. Consequently, the percentage of students scoring in the lower bands has fallen.
These are the interim deciles for the 2025 UCAT test:
1st decile – 1,620
2nd decile – 1,730
3rd decile – 1,810
4th decile – 1,870
5th decile – 1,940
6th decile – 2,000
7th decile – 2,070
8th decile – 2,150
9th decile – 2,270
Because abstract reasoning was removed, it is not possible to make direct comparisons between the decile scores this year and last year.
There are a few significant things to note from the interim 2025 results.
The most important point is the increase in the number of candidates sitting the UCAT, a useful proxy for the total number of expected applicants.
From 2023 to 2024, there was an increase of around 2,000 applicants to an expected total of about 38,000. However, this year UCAT is expecting nearly 43,000 students to sit the UCAT, close to a 5,000 candidate increase.
UCAT has a good track record of predicting the total number of test takers, so it is worth taking seriously. An extra 5,000 students applying this year is a 13% increase on last year.
Comparisons to last year are hard for the obvious reason that UCAT has removed the abstract reasoning section of the test. While they do try to make comparisons to what the previous year’s interim score would have been without abstract reasoning, those may not be wholly accurate.
UCAT states that the preliminary mean score from 2024 without abstract reasoning was 1,913, compared to this year’s mean of 1,939. The reason that you would calculate what last year’s mean would have been without abstract reasoning is to attempt to isolate candidate performance as a variable. Scores vary every year based on the cohort’s performance, so it would look like this year’s candidates are simply more able.
However, because there is an entire section of the UCAT that students do not need to prepare for, we would expect scores to go up regardless of candidate quality, because there is a whole section that does not need to be practiced and revised. We would therefore expect performance to go up irrespective of the ability of the candidates.
This is interesting as a historical take on student performance of the UCAT over time, but the most important thing is that we have some guide as to what a ‘good’ score now looks like when we had no idea before.
If the average score is 1,913 (though it will likely drop when testing has finished), we know that for highly competitive universities, we will need to be looking at a score of at least 2,150 to score in the top 20% and 2,270 to score in the top 10%.
Last year saw a big fall in SJT scores, which has been partially reversed this year with more students in band 1 and fewer in band 4.
There are many medical schools, such as Hull or Kent and Medway, that state they will rule out candidates who score a Band 4 in the SJT.
Fewer candidates will therefore be ruled out of the competition due to lower SJT scores; consequently, if you do have a higher SJT score, it might be prudent to consider an application to universities that take more account of SJT scores.
Last year we saw that the actual mean UCAT score was lower than the preliminary mean score, and we expect this will probably happen again this year.
For 2024, the preliminary mean score was 2,582 and dropped to 2,523 by the end of the testing cycle. If the preliminary mean score is 1,913 then we would expect the actual mean score to drop (though less than normal, with fewer elements of the test there should be less variance) to around 1,880 or so.
The big picture here is that there will be more competition, and a higher score is more important than ever. That is largely down to the increase in test takers by 13%, rather than anything to do with test statistics for the 3 cognitive subsections.
The fall in the numbers of students also getting lower bands in the SJT also means fewer candidates being excluded from universities that use the SJT as a hard cut-off at band 4.
More students will be able to apply for those school,s increasing pressure at those institutions. While this would reduce potentially some pressure elsewhere in the system, the overall increase in numbers would likely dwarf that effect.
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