The BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) is an admissions test for applicants to Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Biomedical Science and Dentistry courses at certain universities (full list of schools requiring the BMAT here).
The BMAT is a good indicator of a student’s potential to succeed in a demanding science-based university course. Like other standardized tests, it is designed to be challenging in order to differentiate between competitive applicants who usually achieve similarly high grades in school examinations.
The BMAT is a multiple choice test lasting two hours, and is usually done at designated test centres around the world.
The test is typically a pen-and-paper based test but for this year (2020), it has been shifted to an online format.
Unlike the UCAT, the BMAT is offered on only two fixed days, once in September (cancelled for 2020 due to Covid-19) and then November (November 4th for 2020).
Take note, 2 schools (Oxford University and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at NTU) require the BMAT to be taken in the November session, while the rest allow you to do the BMAT in either session. So, your first consideration when deciding when to take the BMAT will be based on whether you plan to apply to these two schools.
Another consideration is that whilst doing it in September obviously allows you to get your score before you apply (UK medical applications are due on October 15th) and avoids clashes with any school exams in November, you may be busy in August/September with your UCAT preparation.
Do note, similar to the UCAT, you are only allowed to take the test once in an admissions cycle, with the results being valid for only the admissions cycle in which the test was taken. However, candidates’ scores from the previous year will not affect their admission chances if they retake the BMAT and re-apply in later years.
