MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, Oct. 11, 2018 – Pearson VUE has entered into an agreement with the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) Consortium to transform its medical undergraduate admissions examination from pen-and-paper to computer-based across Australia, New Zealand and some international locations.
Students wishing to study medicine, dentistry and certain clinical science courses at UMAT Consortium-member universities will sit the UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) from 2019 as part of the admissions process. The UCAT has been used to select medicine and dentistry students at the majority of universities in the UK since 2006 under the name UKCAT.
Adrian Evans, vice president, Pearson VUE Australia & SE Asia, said: “Through this new partnership with the UMAT Consortium, candidates will experience greater convenience as they will now be able to schedule their UCAT test online and choose their appointment within the month-long testing window, attending a local and highly secure test centre.”
Professor Wayne Hodgson, chair of the UMAT Consortium and deputy dean (education), Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Pearson VUE, an international leader in computer based testing, with a long established and successful track record of delivering and developing high stakes admissions tests. We are excited to be taking this next step which will see us moving to an internationally renowned aptitude test giving our member universities and potential students greater flexibility and ensuring we continue to promote best practice in admissions.”
The UCAT is a two-hour long computer-based test. Candidates receive their score shortly after the test without waiting for a lengthy marking period. The test is similar to the UMAT but with new question formats and the addition of Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) which measure attitudes and behaviours identified as desirable for successful healthcare professionals.
Within a specified test window, candidates can choose the date and time they sit the test, with access to a wide network of test centres across Australia, New Zealand and internationally.
About UMAT Consortium
The UMAT Consortium has been established for almost 20 years and includes 11 universities in Australia and New Zealand which all use the UMAT (to be renamed UCAT in 2019) as an entry requirement for students wishing to study Medicine or Dentistry at their university. The UMAT test score is considered alongside other entry requirements such as academic grades and interview scores. A list of UMAT Consortium member universities can be found here.