The UCAT Consortium has just released the interim UCAT results for 2021. Let’s look at what the interim results are, what this means to you if you are applying to Medicine in 2021 and how similar this will be to the actual 2021 UCAT scores.

What are the UCAT Interim Scores?

The interim results are statistics based on the scores achieved by people who have sat their UCAT exam before September 12th, 2021. Some 17,000 have already sat the exam, and a further 20,000 students are expected to sit the exam this year.

These results only reflect a portion of people taking the exam this year, so you should take it with a pinch of salt.

UCAT 2021 Interim scores per section

The following are the mean scores by section in 2021:

• Verbal reasoning – 584
• Decision making – 631
• Quantitative reasoning – 685
• Abstract reasoning – 671

The most important takeaway from this is that the mean scores for verbal reasoning and abstract reasoning are much higher than in previous years. This means that students are much better prepared for their tests this year, and are achieving higher scores in these sections. 

UCAT 2021 Interim score – Mean Total Score

The total mean score for the cognitive subtest of the UCAT exam in the 2021 Interim results is 2570. However, this total score is expected to go down when the actual results are published. 

In 2020 this preliminary total score was 2578, but the actual mean score was 2511.

UCAT 2021 Interim score – Deciles

As we can see in the table above, it’s more difficult to be in the top 2 deciles (8th and 9th) than last year. As we already mentioned before, students are much better prepared for their tests this year, and are achieving higher scores.

UCAT 2021 Interim score – Situational Judgement

 

Much fewer students managed to score Band 1 in 2021 interim results compared to 2020 interim results. This may decrease further in the final results for 2021.

The percentages above reflect how many students managed to achieve each band. For example, in 2020, 35% of students achieved Band 1, whilst in 2021, only 16% achieved Band 1.

Why did we use the green downwards facing arrow? Scoring Band 1 this year will make you stand out more than it would last year. In other words, medical schools that look at SJT as a part of the admission process could look more favourably at your application since you would be one of fewer students that achieved Band 1 this year.

The number of students sitting the UCAT

Medicine is even more competitive than the last year. In 2020, 34,153 students sat the UCAT. This year the number will be around 37,000. 

That means more students will be in every decile (around 290 extra students per decile), making it harder for students in lower deciles to get interview offers.