One of the most important aspects of working on a successful medical or dental school application in the UK and other countries is to understand how the UCAT percentiles work. Percentiles are even more crucial with the 2025 amendments to the UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test), whereby universities are modifying their interpretation of the relative performance of the candidates after exclusion of the Abstract Reasoning section.
This informative blog provides comprehensive information about the new UCAT percentiles, how universities use them, and what your scores indicate regarding your application.
UCAT 2025: The Updated Test Structure
This update was a radical structural change to the 2025 UCAT by removing the Abstract Reasoning (AR) section. The current test consists of three cognitive subtests, including Verbal Reasoning (VR), Decision Making (DM) and Quantitative Reasoning (QR), and the Situational Judgement Test (SJT) as required by the UCAT Consortium.
The cognitive subtests are graded differently on a scale of 300 to 900, and the overall score is thus between 900 and 2700. This replaces the old 1200-3600 scaling range for the four-section test.
Applicants took the exam with slightly relaxed time limits; namely, the Decision-Making section was allotted more time and more questions to make it a better predictor of medical-school performance in 2025.
This new structure means that 2025’s percentiles and score distributions will differ from previous years, so applicants must fit their scores into this new framework.
UCAT Percentiles in 2025 Explained
According to official statistics provided by UCAT in 2025, 41,354 students were enrolled in the exam, which is a growth of 9 per cent over the previous years. The average overall cognitive scaled score was 1,891, which was slightly above the mean of the previous year (1,870).
Individual sections’ mean scores were 602 in verbal reasoning, 628 in decision-making, and 661 in quantitative reasoning. These scores indicate a small upward trend amongst high-achieving candidates compared to 2024, and it may have been at least somewhat harder to score the highest this year.
The situational judgement test (SJT) has also been explained through percentile bands, which are categorised into four levels: Band 1 (best performance) up to Band 4 (poorest performance).
The distribution of candidates in 2025 was 21% (Band 1), 39% (Band 2), and 29% (Band 3), which was relatively consistent with the previous year.
How Percentiles Are Calculated
Percentile is the percentage of people who took the test who scored at a lower percentage than you. As an example, the 80th percentile will mean you worked above 80% of all UCAT applicants. The percentiles are based on decile tables released by the UCAT Consortium on a monthly basis, usually in September.
Under the UCAT, ten segments of the cohort are created (deciles), representing 10% of the entire pool of candidates. Thus, the first decile indicates the 10th percentile, and the median (50th percentile) indicates the fifth decile. These deciles enable an applicant to have a better performance comparison than using the raw scores alone.
As of 2025, online percentile lookups, UCAT, and preparation providers like RAAKMEDICS are also accessible and provide a quick conversion of raw scores to a percentile ranking.
UCAT Score Interpretation by Universities
The interpretation of UCAT percentiles in universities is not standardised, and all the universities accord different weights to UCAT results. Generally, universities can be divided into three broad groups related to the use of UCAT scores:
Universities like Newcastle, Sheffield and Glasgow have a heavy dependence on UCAT scores, and sometimes they impose strict cutoffs in terms of percentile rank. Indicatively, such universities will usually shortlist applicants who are in the top 20–30% scores.
Equal weighting Moderate weighting In contrast to Newcastle, institutions in cities like Birmingham and Nottingham use academic performance alongside UCAT scores. They award points to various elements, such as GCSEs and projected grades and UCAT scores, so the fact that a certain individual might perform somewhat below average on the UCAT is compensated by outstanding performance in school.
Low weighting or threshold models: Medical schools like Keele and Sunderland use the UCAT as a minimum threshold. The basic UCAT standard (usually around the 30th percentile) is required before the candidates proceed to the next stage of consideration depending on experience and personal statements.
Such diversity implies that ‘good’ is a relative concept. A competitive score in one university may be less than the minimum in another. In turn, the knowledge of percentile ranks and certain university policies is essential to effective targeting applications.
How UCAT Percentiles Compare Across Years
Due to the amendments in 2025, it is prudent to compare UCAT percentiles in the past years. The total score range (900-2700 as compared to 1,200-3,600) has been compressed, thus making it impossible to directly compare the 2025 scores to the previous 2024 and lower scores.
An example is that 2,700 would have been near the 50th percentile with the 3,600-point system, but now 2,700 would be considered an almost perfect score in accordance with the new regulations. The UCAT Consortium corrected past data to ensure fair percentage percentile alignment so that percentiles, and not raw scores, will be the useful measure of relative performance.
That is why applicants and colleges are still basing their decisions on percentiles, not on overall marks. Percentiles counterbalance year-on-year variations due to minor changes in format or changes in cohort ability.
Why Universities Care More About Percentiles
Percentiles provide universities with a standardised reference point against which to gauge applicants across thousands of applications and various testing sessions. In contrast to raw scores, which can vary in difficulty following each year of question sets, percentiles always represent the position of a candidate within the applicant pool.
Furthermore, percentile data are of great use in universities to uphold fairness. Their percentile-based cut-offs help remove skew effects in the selection decisions caused by variations in the difficulty of the tests. This notion implies that the top 10 per cent of the score today will ensure the same competitiveness as the top 10 per cent of the score yesterday – no matter which year has the higher averages.
UCAT Success With RAAKMEDICS
In summary, UCAT percentiles offer institutions of higher learning an equitable method of ranking applicants and provide the students a clear idea of their relative competitiveness. The 2025 statistics indicate that the mean score is around 1890, and outstanding students who score above 2200 are at the top decile.
However, percentiles themselves do not characterise the potential of an individual; their significance is simply a current status in the academic sphere and the presence of the effect of special training.
These percentile insights are used to form comprehensive UCAT training programmes at RAAKMEDICS. The seamless alignment of teaching techniques with the recently introduced 2025 test format and performance indexes ensures that every student not only understands the meaning of their UCAT percentile but also knows how to improve their performance. By using the coaching methods of experts, full-length simulated examinations, and dynamic analytics, such future medical students are prepared to go beyond being average to exceptional.
