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The interim 2022 UCAT scores contain data from the start of the 2022 testing period up to 11th September. By this point, 18,770 candidates had taken the test. It is anticipated that a further 18,000 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 2022, the total mean UCAT score is 2,554.
The interim mean scores for each section are:
When you compare this to last year’s interim UCAT scores, the interim scores for Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning are slightly lower this year (584 last year vs. 577 this year for VR; 685 last year vs. 674 this year for QR). Decision Making is the same (631 in both years) and Abstract Reasoning is very similar (671 last year vs. 673 this year).
The interim results for Situational Judgement are:
Compared to last year’s interim results, more test-takers have achieved Band 1 in Situational Judgement this year – 22% this year vs. 16% last year.
These are the interim deciles for the 2022 UCAT test:
These interim stats point towards a broader range of UCAT scores for the 2022 test. The 9th decile is higher (2,940 this year vs. 2,920 last year) and the 1st decile is lower (2,170 this year vs. 2,230 last year).
There are a few significant things that we have found from the interim 2022 results.
By 11th September 18,770 candidates had taken the UCAT, with another 18,000 expected to do so before the end of the cycle. This amounts to a total expected number of 36,770. This is very close to the 37,230 who sat the UCAT test last year. Given that UCAT, at the same stage of the testing period last year, estimated roughly 37,000 test-takers, it seems reasonable to take their estimates seriously.
As such, it looks like roughly the same number of candidates are sitting the UCAT test this year as last year, which is a decent proxy for the overall number of candidates for Medicine.
However, there are not the same number of Medicine places this year!
This year, the cap on the number of places available to study Medicine in the UK has been re-introduced at around the pre-pandemic level. Universities have been given a target of 7,571 Medicine places to be made available. In contrast, there were 10,543 places last year. So even if there are around the same number of applicants for Medicine this year, they will be competing for fewer spaces.
We also have to consider that a number of these places will be already taken by candidates who were forced to defer last year. The cap does not take into account those holding deferred places.
This means that your UCAT score – and your overall application – will need to be even more competitive than before to get shortlisted for a Medical School interview. And if you do get shortlisted, you’ll need to spend even more time on interview prep so that you can really stand out.
Given the lower number of places available compared to last year, this could translate into higher thresholds and requirements for 2023 entry and beyond.
If you’re thinking of applying to a UCAT university that ranks applicants by score, you may need an even higher score than in previous years to be shortlisted for interview.
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 2021, the preliminary mean score was 2,570 but the actual mean score ended up being 2,499. If this year’s preliminary mean score is 2,554 then we’d expect to see the actual mean score somewhere in the range of 2,500-2,470 once testing has finished.
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