How Imperial use the BMAT - a guide for Medicine (A100) applicants

Imperial are one of the original 'big 4' medical schools that has been using the BMAT for many years. They are the only medical school that have a absolute BMAT cutoff and publish this on their website. In this post, I have explained exactly how Imperial use your BMAT score to decide whether you get an interview.

The advantage of knowing this information beforehand is that you can judge how confident you are for the BMAT and then decide whether you want to apply. However, it does mean that if the BMAT doesn't do as well as you would like, your other areas can't compensate as the cutoff is a strict one.


Assuming you meet the minimum requirements listed on the website/prospectus, your BMAT score is the first thing that is considered before your UCAS application is considered. You must meet the cut-off in every section, including both parts of the section 3 score, for your application to be looked at further. The majority of applicants to Imperial are rejected as they do not meet the BMAT cut-off. For 2013 entry, just 646 applicants met the BMAT cutoff out of the 2500 that applied.

For 2015 entry, the cut-off score was lower than in preceding years at 4.3 4.4 2.3B. I think this is because they are interviewing more people; their website says they interview about 750 people, which is slightly more than in previous years (around 600). However, I believe that the average score for the 2014 BMAT was a little lower than usual.

However, after meeting the BMAT cutoff, they have priority groups based on BMAT scores. If you only just meet the BMAT cut-off then there is a lower chance of being invited to interview.
At first, candidates from band 1 are viewed and called for interview. If there are still spaces left, the candidates in band 2 are considered to fill any remaining spaces. If there are still places remaining, then candidates from band 3 are considered.

Oh and just as a side note, incase you think I am spouting out total rubbish or pulling the numbers out of thin air, I have tried to include the links to the FoI requests I have gathered my information from somewhere on this post. I have also used my own FoI request information on some of these figures too.

BMAT Bands (based on 2014 entry)

  • Band 1 - 5.7 5.5 3.5 B. 185 applicants achieved this band, 166 were interviewed (success rate in getting an interview = 89.7%).
  • Band 2 - 5.1 5.2 3 B. 233 applicants achieved this band, 162 were interviewed (success rate in getting an interview = 69.5%). 
  • Band 3 - 4.5 4.6 2.5 B. 446 applicants achieved this band, 266 were interviewed (success rate in getting an interview = 59.6%).
  • Band 4 - 4.3 4.3 2 C. 294 applicants achieved this band, 22 were interviewed (success rate in getting an interview = 7.5%).
The data here shows your chance of getting an interview if you are in a particular band, and this reiterates the point that if you have a strong BMAT, then you have a very good chance of getting into Imperial. But this does not mean that it is easy - everybody invited to the interview stage has got a strong BMAT and are likely to be very high calibre applicants, so you still need to prepare to give a strong interview performance. Just because the numbers are lower, does not mean it is less competitive!

Historical BMAT cutoffs for Imperial

  • 2015 Entry: the cutoff was 4.3 4.4 2.3B, band 1 was 5.4 5.4 3.5B (based on a FoI request)
  • 2014 Entry: the cutoff was 4.5 4.6 2.5B, band 1 was 5.7 5.5 3.5B 
  • 2013 Entry: the cutoff was 4.7 4.6 2.5C, band 1 was 5.6 5.6 3.5B
  • 2012 Entry: the cutoff was 4.9 4.9 2.5C, band 1 was 5.7 5.8 3.5B (info here)
So the bottom line is, if you perform well on the BMAT, you will pretty much get an interview at Imperial (assuming everything else in your application is decent). Based on the statistics from 2014 entry (link here), if you get into band 1, you have a 90% chance of being called for interview. 

Additionally, it seems like the minimum BMAT cutoff is getting slightly lower as the years go by, but band 1 seems to be very stable. This could be because the average BMAT score is lowering slightly, but it could also be because Imperial want to give more of a chance to those applicant who didn't do as well as they would have liked on the BMAT. 

Comments

  1. Hi! Thanks for posting this!
    I just got my BMAT results:
    Sec 1: 4.9 (not as high as I hoped) with a mean of 4.5
    Sec 2: 7.4 (mean of 4.3)
    Sec 3: 4A (mean of 3A)
    Do you think I have a chance of getting into band 1/2 , given my section 2 and 3 scores?

    ReplyDelete

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