The importance of UMAT for entry to med

Perhaps the most dreaded part of HSFY is sitting the UMAT. The word "UMAT" alone is enough to send shivers down the spine of many a health sci. Popular opinion holds that UMAT is the decider – the one test in which a bad performance is completely fatal to your chance of getting into med, regardless of your HSFY marks. This tends to lead to hysteria, with people blowing UMAT way out of proportion. I will say now – it isn’t uncommon for people to get into med with a 50th percentile UMAT, so when you hear someone say “I was going for med but then I got a 70th percentile UMAT and now I am completely out of contention” (I have actually heard someone say something to that effect), IGNORE IT.

UMAT may be worth 33% of the ranking score used to determine entry into medicine, but most UMAT scores fall within a relatively narrow range. For 2009, a 30th percentile UMAT was a score of 46, and a 95th percentile UMAT was a score of 62. Hence 65% of the people sitting UMAT (and probably 80-90% of Otago students sitting UMAT) score within a range of 16. This equates to a range in the HSFY paper average of 8%! Significant, but not earth-shattering.
The lowest ranking score I know of for someone getting straight into 2010 med from HSFY was 77.5. Some people got in through the waiting list with lower scores, but this is really something you want to avoid. Now, if we assume no effect on the UMAT score from Otago weighting (though in reality UMAT scores tend to drop by an average of around 1-2), the following table holds (sorry that it's a bit messy):

UMAT percentile | Minimum HSFY paper average to get straight into
..................................2nd year med 2010
30th percentile | 94%
50th percentile | 92%
80th percentile | 89%
90th percentile | 87%
95th percentile | 86%

You should remember that the above table is very susceptible to UMAT weighting (which could change the corresponding HSFY average required by up to 5% - though I’m sure most people trying for med could calculate their weighted UMAT score – S1 mark*0.45 + S2 mark*0.45 + S3 mark*0.1 and compare this to the cut-off of 77.5), and to the fact that the cut-off is likely to change every year. I reckon you would probably be safe with an average 3% higher than that above.

So, given that most people seriously aiming for med should be aiming to get A+s across their HSFY papers, anything 80th percentile or above in UMAT is definitely good enough. While things definitely get harder with UMAT marks less than 80th percentile, this is not by a devastating amount. If you get a UMAT of 50th percentile this just means that you should be aiming to get about 3% higher in each test than the 80th percentile people.

Why am I saying this? Because I personally believe you will do better in UMAT if you are able to relax a bit before the test. UMAT tests your thinking not your knowledge (hence why it is very hard to improve your mark through preparation – I’ll get to this in a later post), and therefore you will do better if you can think clearly at the time of the test and not be clouded by nervous emotions. Hopefully if you realise that UMAT is not the make-or-break event, you can overcome some nerves. Yes, an absolutely terrible performance will completely rule out med, but the same can be said for any of your final exams. Otherwise UMAT is not that big – if you don’t get into med chances are it’ll be a combination of a mediocre UMAT and a mediocre HSFY average. A mediocre UMAT on its own is not enough to rule you out.

The second reason I think you should keep this in mind is to avoid the “post-UMAT carnage”. For many people the effect of UMAT on your approach to HSFY can be far more damaging than UMAT itself. It is known for people to find themselves unable to study or sleep due to the nerves in the wait for UMAT results. It is also known for people to see a mediocre UMAT such as 60th percentile, mistakenly think that this means they are not getting into med, and therefore give up on their HSFY papers. Both of these result in significant drops in the HSFY paper average. Don’t let this happen to you! After sitting UMAT try to keep two things in mind – firstly, that unless your HSFY paper marks have been borderline it is unlikely to on its own stop you getting into med and secondly, that it is done and there is nothing you can do about UMAT now. What you can do is work hard in your semester 2 papers because if you let those drop then that is going to be far more devastating than a mediocre UMAT.