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What GAMSAT actually is

GAMSAT (the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test) was created in 1995 by four Australian medical schools and adopted by UK universities from 1999. It is now administered globally by ACER (the Australian Council for Educational Research), in partnership with GEMPASS Australia — Australia, Ireland, and the UK all register through the same portal, gamsat.acer.org. There is no longer a separate UK-run GAMSAT body; if you find a site that isn't gamsat.acer.org selling itself as "official," it's a preparation company, not the registrar.

The test has three sections sat on a single test day, roughly 8am to 4pm: Section I is Reasoning in Humanities and Social Sciences (62 multiple-choice questions); Section II is Written Communication (two essays); Section III is Reasoning in Biological and Physical Sciences (75 questions, the largest and most content-heavy section). Scoring runs 0–100 per section via item-response theory, and the overall score most schools use is (1×Section I + 1×Section II + 2×Section III) ÷ 4 — Section III is double-weighted at most universities, though a handful (Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland, per publicly available admissions information) weight all three sections equally. Always confirm the weighting formula on the specific school's own admissions page before assuming a standard calculation.

2026 test dates and how the sittings work

As of 2025, GAMSAT moved to a split-window format: the remote-proctored Written Communication section now sits roughly three weeks before the in-person, test-centre Sections I and III day, rather than everything happening in one sitting. Per ACER's own 2026 information booklet, the confirmed windows are:

  • March 2026 sitting — Written Communication (remote): 28 February – 1 March. Sections I & III (test centre): 20–22 March.
  • September 2026 sitting — Written Communication (remote): 22–23 August. Sections I & III (test centre): 11–13 September.

Registration fees at time of writing: AUD $568 in Australia, €378 in Ireland, £296 in the UK. These change annually — confirm the current fee and exact dates directly on ACER's information booklet before planning around them.

Which schools accept GAMSAT

In Australia, GAMSAT feeds into 4-year graduate-entry MD programmes at (per ACER's own published list): ANU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, Macquarie, Melbourne, Notre Dame Australia, Queensland, Sydney, UWA, and Wollongong. Other Australian medical schools run 5–6 year undergraduate-entry programmes that don't use GAMSAT at all.

In the UK, GAMSAT-accepting graduate-entry programmes (per ACER's UK admissions list, alongside the standard UCAS 15 October deadline) currently include Brunel, Chester, Exeter, UEA, Cumbria (Lancaster), Keele, Liverpool, Plymouth, St Andrews/Dundee, St George's, Sunderland, Surrey, Swansea, Ulster, and Worcester. Most require an upper-second-class honours degree in your first degree; a small number (Nottingham, at time of writing) accept a lower second.

This list changes from year to year — schools add, drop, or pause graduate-entry intakes, and requirements shift. Treat this as a starting point for research, not a final shortlist, and verify directly with ACER's UK list and ACER's Australia list before building an application plan around any specific school.

What "mature student" actually means here

No UK or Australian medical school publishes an explicit upper age cutoff for medicine — Oxford's own mature-applicant guidance states there is no age limit, while noting the practical reality of a long training pipeline (5–6 years of study plus postgraduate training) that's worth thinking through regardless of your age. The BMA's careers guidance confirms that UK schools "welcome applications from mature students," assessed on academic background and life/work experience rather than age itself.

For students without a standard post-16 academic route into a non-graduate-entry programme, Access to HE Diplomas are a recognised alternative pathway in the UK — worth researching if your route into medicine doesn't go through A-Levels or a prior degree at all. For anyone who already holds a degree in another field and wants a structured route in, GAMSAT-based graduate entry (the 4-year accelerated programmes listed above) is the primary established pathway, in both the UK and Australia.

What counts as a "good" GAMSAT score

There is no official published cutoff — ACER is explicit that each school sets its own threshold independently, and that threshold moves from year to year with the size and strength of the applicant pool. What follows are informally reported ranges, not official figures, and should be read as rough orientation only: an average score is commonly cited around 56–58; scores above roughly 60 are often described as strong (top quartile); scores in the low-to-mid 70s are described as exceptional (roughly top 2% of sitters). UK interview shortlisting has been informally reported around the 58–61 mark at several schools in recent cycles. None of this is a guarantee — a school's actual cutoff for the year you apply could sit meaningfully above or below any of these numbers, and your score is only part of a wider application.

What's changed recently, and what to watch for

Two things worth knowing if you last looked into GAMSAT more than a couple of years ago. First, ACER's global administration has consolidated — UK candidates now register through the same gamsat.acer.org portal as Australian and Irish candidates, rather than a separate UK-specific body, and some commercial "gamsat.co.uk"-style sites are prep companies carrying non-affiliation disclaimers, not the official registrar. Second, the split test-window format (remote Written Communication ahead of the in-person science and reasoning day) is relatively new — build both dates into your planning, not just the test-centre day.

Sources & methodology

Facts on this page are drawn directly from ACER's own GAMSAT site and 2026 information booklet, the BMA's careers guidance, and Oxford Medical Sciences' mature-applicant guidance. Informal score ranges are clearly labelled as such and sourced from commonly cited (not official) preparation-industry reporting — treat them as orientation, not prediction. School-acceptance lists reflect ACER's published admissions pages at the time of writing and are noted as subject to annual change.