The UMAT is the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test. For more information about the UMAT, you can download our information sheet from the free downloads page.
Most medical entrance courses in Australia require students to have sat UMAT and have valid UMAT scores. Please see the next question below which gives details of universities which require UMAT for medical entrance and other courses.
You will need to sit the UMAT if you are interested in any of the following university courses:
University of Melbourne (Oral Health)
Yes! Even high achieving students stumble in the UMAT. Some students with perfect year 12 scores (99.95 / OP 1) have missed out on a place in medicine and related courses due to their low UMAT scores. In some cases, your UMAT score is more important than your year 12 score in securing a place in the health sciences.
Research shows training can significantly improve UMAT score by familiarizing you with the types of questions that will be asked and developing strategies to tackle them. Even ACER now admits that training for UMAT helps.
An all-too-common fallacy about preparing for UMAT is that all you need to do is 'familiarise' yourself with the test by doing some practice questions. That's like saying the way to become a great basketball player is to familiarise yourself with a basketball court and practice taking a few shots.
Once upon a time, people were wrong. They thought that the automobile was an electric death-trap that would never replace the horse and carriage, computers were only for academic nerds, and people who used tuition were simply cheaters. Then, cars stopped exploding every time you started the engine, people realised that you could use computers for more than just calculating the digits of pi, and the 'cheaters' with the tuition... well, they started getting it. They got better grades, got into better universities and just plain old got better. Times change, rules change.
"Kids take prep courses to ace tests that are supposed to measure inborn aptitude," (page 100, Time Magazine, December 20, 2004).
Start preparing now!
Please also read this article. (Does the MedEntry program really work?)
In 2012, the UMAT will be held on Wednesday 25th of July 2012.
If you have not been successful the first time you sit the UMAT, you can re-sit it without being penalised. However, universities will use your most recent results when considering your application. UMAT scores are valid for one year.
This is a recent change by ACER. Please see details here: http://umat.acer.edu.au/news/changes-to-umat-results
You can register for the UMAT online at http://umatweb.acer.edu.au. Registrations for UMAT opens on Friday 30 March 2012.
Please note that enrolling with MedEntry UMAT Preparation course does not represent or include an application to sit the UMAT.
ACER is the Australian Council for Educational Research; an organization that administers the UMAT. You will need to contact ACER to register for the UMAT. Please visit http://umatweb.acer.edu.au for more information.
The registration fee is $200. If you are eligible for a concession, the registration fee is $100. If you are sitting the UMAT outside Australia and New Zealand, there is an additional $165 fee.
Registrations for UMAT 2012 will open at 9am AEST on Friday 30 March 2012. Registrations close at 5pm AEST on Friday 1 June 2012.
Late registrations for UMAT will be accepted up to 5pm AEST on Friday 15 June 2012 on payment of a late fee of $65 in addition to the registration fee. The online registration system will close at 5pm AEST on Friday 15 June 2012. It will NOT be possible to register for UMAT 2012 after this time.
The graduate medicine entry route requires that you complete a degree first before applying for Medicine. This means studying hard for an additional 3 or 4 years (and paying the fees), with no guarantee of getting into Medicine. You also need to sit a test called the GAMSAT, which is a six hour test (compare this with UMAT which is a 2.75 hour test) as well as doing well in the interview. The GAMSAT has been described by most people as "the most horrible thing I've ever had to do in my life". Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you do a Biomedicine or Biosciences degree, you will automatically be offered a place in Medicine. If you miss out on a place in Medicine, you may end up with a degree that is not useful for your future, and a waste of several years.
The median age of students entering graduate medical programs in Australia is 25.4 years. By that age, you would have completed your medical degree and probably working as a Registrar in your chosen specialty if you choose the Year 12 entry (UMAT) route. Imagine entering medical school at 25 via graduate entry, then trying to study for the specialist training exams in your early thirties with family to care for!
Further, when you apply through the graduate entry pathway, you can only apply to one university (with only three preferences) and you will be interviewed only by one university. The universities have colluded to make it this way, so that it is less work for them and easier for them to select students (although it imposes harsh restrictions on aspiring doctors).
Some people think universities are benign organisations, but in reality they are massive businesses with annual income of each university around a billion dollars - they earn about $30,000 per year of study at university for each student (about $8000 from you, and the rest from the government). This means that the longer you study at university, the better it is for them. This is the reason why some universities are moving towards graduate-entry medical programs. It is to increase universities' income, not because it is good for you! Furthermore, universities are prohibited from charging full fees for undergraduate medicine, but they can charge full fees for graduate medicine!
Some people feel that they want to go to so-called "prestigious" universities (eg. Sydney University) which offer only graduate medicine. However, unlike other disciplines such as law, in medicine it does not matter which university you graduate from.
There are some UMAT sample questions you can download from here. In the MedEntry UMAT workshop, numerous past UMAT sample questions will be discussed. The MedEntry LMS has thousands of UMAT sample questions for you to practice on. The Eureka UMAT website has numerous questions for you to develop the skills.
When you purchase the MedEntry UMAT package, you will get numerous resources for you to use. You will also get additional recommended reading in the UMAT Courses. This is definitely much more than you need, if you use it properly. How to efficiently and effectively use these resources is also discussed in the UMAT Courses.
We also recommend that you obtain the ACER's two practice exams that you can buy when you register for UMAT.
Apart from these, we do not recommend any other courses or programs. There are some websites spruiking UMAT products which are scams, run by bankrupts etc. They are likely to mislead you.
For more information on the UMAT, you can visit the ACER website at http://umatweb.acer.edu.au
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