What is a good UCAT score for medicine in Australia?

On the current UCAT ANZ cognitive scale of 900-2700, the median sits around 1930 and the 90th decile around 2310. Most competitive school-leaver medicine applicants sit above the 90th percentile, so roughly 2310 and up, but there is no single required number: the score is worth a third of the final rank at Monash and UNSW, a fifth at Curtin and Adelaide, a tiebreaker at Griffith and UTAS, and nothing at all at Melbourne, Sydney, JCU and La Trobe.

Can a high ATAR make up for a bad UCAT?

At some universities, completely. Griffith, UTAS and UQ dentistry rank on ATAR and use the UCAT only to split ties, and Melbourne, Sydney, JCU, La Trobe and Charles Darwin's Menzies program do not ask for a UCAT at all. At Western Sydney and Charles Sturt the reverse is true: ATAR is only a hurdle and extra ATAR points buy you nothing once you clear it.

Does the UCAT Situational Judgement band matter?

At most Australian undergraduate medicine pathways, no — the cognitive total is what gets weighted and UNSW states outright that Situational Judgement is not counted. The notable exception is UQ dentistry, which uses the full UCAT including Situational Judgement as its tiebreaker above the ATAR threshold. Treat a strong band as insurance rather than as points.

What UCAT score do you need to get an interview?

The invitation cut-off is usually higher than what the final formula implies, and it is the harder gate. Universities interview only a few applicants per place, so the invite round is where most people are cut. Some schools invite on UCAT alone (Western Sydney, Charles Sturt, Adelaide, UWA, Griffith dentistry), others blend UCAT with ATAR (UNSW, UQ, Monash's January round). Cut-offs are never published, so any number you see quoted is an estimate from past applicant reports.

What UCAT score do you need for medicine in Australia?

Q: Is the UCAT out of 3600 or 2700?

Out of 2700. Abstract Reasoning was removed from the UCAT ANZ from 2025, so the cognitive total is now three subtests — Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning — each scaled 300-900. Situational Judgement is still reported separately as a band from 1 to 4 and is not part of the cognitive total.

First, the scale changed

The UCAT ANZ cognitive total is out of 2700, not 3600. Abstract Reasoning was dropped from 2025, leaving three subtests — Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning — each scaled 300–900. Situational Judgement still exists but is reported separately as a band from 1 to 4, and it is not part of the cognitive total.

This matters when you read older advice. A forum post saying "you need 3000+" was written for a four-subtest scale and does not convert by arithmetic. Anything quoting a number above 2700 is describing an exam that no longer exists.

Where your score sits

The useful unit is the percentile, not the raw number, because universities rank you against the people who sat the same test. The 2025 decile table for the cognitive total:

Decile	Cognitive total	What it means
50th (median)	1930	Half of all candidates
60th	2000	Above average, not yet competitive
70th	2090	Competitive at rural and interview-heavy pathways
80th	2190	In range for most schools with a rural or local advantage
90th	2310	Where most metropolitan interview invitations start

Note how compressed the top is: the gap from the median to the 90th decile is 380 points, but the gap from the 90th to the 99th is a similar size on a far steeper curve. Above 2310 every ten points is worth several percentile places, which is exactly the region where the cut-offs live.

The one-sentence version. Most successful school-leaver applicants to metropolitan medicine sit above the 90th percentile — roughly 2310 and up — but a 2100 with a rural background, or a 2000 with a 99.9 ATAR aimed at the right universities, is a live application and a 2400 aimed at the wrong ones is not.

The same score, five different jobs

Australian undergraduate medicine is not one admissions system. There are 21 school-leaver pathways into medicine and 8 into dentistry, and they treat the UCAT in five distinct ways.

How the UCAT is used	Where	What it means for you
A third of the final rank	Monash, UNSW (ATAR ⅓ + UCAT ⅓ + interview ⅓)	The maximum weight the UCAT carries anywhere. Points here are directly convertible into rank.
A fifth to a quarter	UQ, USQ, CQU (25%), Curtin, UWA, Adelaide, Griffith dentistry (20%), Western Sydney and Charles Sturt (25%)	Real but modest. At Western Sydney and Charles Sturt the interview is 75%, so the UCAT's main job is getting you into the room.
Invitation only	Newcastle/New England Joint Medical Program	UCAT buys the interview and then stops counting — the final offer is 100% the Multiple Skills Assessment.
Tiebreaker	Griffith, Sunshine Coast, UTAS, UQ dentistry	ATAR ranks you; UCAT only splits applicants sitting inside the same ATAR band.
Not used at all	Melbourne, Sydney, JCU, La Trobe, Charles Darwin (Menzies), plus three dentistry pathways	Eight pathways never see your score. A bad UCAT does not touch these applications.

The practical consequence: "is 2200 good enough" is unanswerable without knowing your ATAR, your state and whether you qualify for a rural scheme. 2200 is short at Monash, comfortably in range at Charles Sturt with a rural background, and completely irrelevant at Sydney, where the gate is a 99.95 ATAR and a panel interview.

The invitation cut-off is the real gate

Most applicants who miss out are never cut by the final weighted formula, because they never reach it. Universities interview a small multiple of their intake, so the invitation round removes the majority of the field — and its threshold is generally higher than the final formula's weighting would suggest.

Two structures exist:

Invite on UCAT alone. Western Sydney, Charles Sturt, Adelaide, UWA and Griffith dentistry rank invitations on the cognitive total, with ATAR only as a hurdle. A near-perfect ATAR does not buy you an interview here.
Invite on UCAT plus ATAR. UNSW and UQ blend the two. Monash runs a December round on UCAT alone and a January round on UCAT plus ATAR, which is why applicants with strong ATARs sometimes hear late rather than not at all.

Nobody publishes these thresholds. Every "cut-off" you see quoted — including ours — is an estimate reconstructed from applicant reports, and it moves year to year with the size and strength of the field.

Does Situational Judgement count?

Mostly no. It sits outside the cognitive total and most schools ignore it; UNSW says so explicitly. The exception worth naming is UQ dentistry, which uses the full UCAT including Situational Judgement as its tiebreaker above the ATAR threshold. Everywhere else, treat a Band 1 as a safety margin rather than as points on the board — a poor band occasionally raises questions, a strong one rarely earns you anything.

Work out your own number

Because the answer depends on which pathway you are asking about, the only useful version of this question is per-university. We built a free calculator that does it: the medicine and dentistry entry odds calculator. Put in your UCAT total and, if you have one, a predicted ATAR, and it scores you against all 29 school-leaver pathways using each university's own published ATAR / UCAT / interview weightings — plus your home state and rural eligibility, both of which move the bar more than most people expect.

It also does the thing spreadsheets of cut-offs cannot: for every pathway with an interview, it tells you the interview score you would need, given the UCAT and ATAR you already have. That is usually the most actionable output, because it converts a vague "am I competitive" into "I need to interview in the top quarter at this one, and the top half at that one".

Two applicants, same UCAT

Both sit 2250 — around the 85th percentile. The first has a predicted 99.6 ATAR and no rural eligibility; the second has 96.0 and qualifies for a rural scheme.

→ Their best-bet lists barely overlap. Applicant one should be preferencing the ATAR-ranked pathways where the UCAT is a tiebreaker; applicant two should be preferencing the rural-quota pathways where the interview does most of the work. Neither list is "the good universities" — they are just different formulas.

The part nobody wants to hear

Whatever the UCAT is worth at your target schools, the ATAR is worth as much or more at almost all of them, and unlike the UCAT it is decided by twelve months of ordinary work rather than one morning. Every pathway on the list has an ATAR hurdle, and eleven of the twenty-nine rank primarily or entirely on it.

That work is unglamorous. It is mostly about not losing the same marks twice — which is what an error log is for, and why the marks you drop to "silly mistakes" are usually the cheapest ATAR points available to anyone already sitting near the top. errorboard does that logging for you: photograph your working, and it reads the page, names what went wrong, and files it by topic so the pattern is visible instead of forgotten.

Summary

There is no single UCAT score you need. Above the 90th percentile (about 2310) you are competitive at most metropolitan pathways; below it you should be building a preference list around the pathways where the UCAT is a tiebreaker or is not used at all. Work out the invite cut-off before the final formula, check your state and rural status, and run your actual numbers rather than a forum average.