ATAR cut-offs for Australianmedicine & dentistry

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is the principal academic ranking used in undergraduate medicine and dentistry admissions across Australia. This page explains what ATAR measures, how it differs from your selection rank once adjustment factors are applied, the four main adjustment schemes, and a table of the Australian undergraduate programmes that publish an ATAR figure, with their UCAT-ANZ position and intake size. Two school-leaver routes are not yet in it: Flinders, whose Bachelor of Clinical Sciences / Doctor of Medicine pathway requires a minimum Year 12 ATAR of 95.00 and ranks on Year 12 subject results (90%) plus a UCAT-ANZ-derived score (10%) with no interview, and JCU Dentistry.

The ATAR is a rank, not a mark — a number between 0 and 99.95 in 0.05 increments. It places each year-12 student against their state's age group — UAC defines this as all 16 to 20-year-olds in NSW, not just those who sat year 12. An ATAR of 99.00 means you outranked 99% of that age group. An ATAR of 99.95 is the maximum.

Each state and territory calculates ATAR slightly differently. NSW uses the HSC scaling system and UAC computes ATAR. Victoria uses VCE scaled study scores and VTAC computes ATAR. Queensland uses subject grades and QTAC computes ATAR. WA uses ATAR-eligible subjects via TISC. The result is comparable across states — a 99.00 in NSW means the same percentile rank as a 99.00 in WA — but the path to it differs.

Importantly, ATAR is not a percentage of marks. A raw average of 90% across your year-12 subjects does not produce an ATAR of 90. ATAR is purely positional. The scaling process compares your raw marks to the cohort distribution, then assigns the percentile rank. For the cognitive test paired with ATAR, see the UCAT-ANZ guide.

Your raw ATAR is fixed. Your selection rank for a specific medical or dental programme is your ATAR plus any adjustment factors that programme awards you. Whether adjustments count at all is school-specific. Adelaide sets its 90.00 floor on the adjusted selection rank and UTAS's minimum 95 includes any rural adjustment, but UNSW requires an ATAR of 96.00 “without EAS adjustments” (91.00 “without adjustment points” on the Rural Entry pathway), and JCU makes no adjustment scheme available to Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science applicants at all. Read each school's own wording before you assume your adjusted rank is the number that counts.

Adjustments are applied at the school level, not centrally. The same applicant might have a 99 selection rank at School A (which awards Subject Adjustments for Chemistry) and a 96 selection rank at School B (which doesn't). Always check each school's adjustment policy before assuming an adjustment applies.

Few Australian medical schools publish an actual lowest-admitted selection rank. Adelaide says its minimum academic scores “are provided for guidance only”; Charles Sturt says the UCAT-ANZ level it requires “will vary each year, determined by the performance of all applicants… and will not be disclosed”. Where a genuine offer profile exists it comes from the admissions centre rather than the school — QTAC, for example, publishes lowest, median and highest ranks offered both excluding and including adjustment factors. Those profiles are descriptive of what happened, not prescriptive of what will happen. The cycle ending 2026 produced the cut-offs shown in the table below; cut-offs for 2027 entry may rise or fall by 0.5 to 2.0 points depending on cohort size.

Each Australian undergraduate medical school weights ATAR, UCAT-ANZ, and the interview differently in the final ranking. The patterns:

• ATAR and UCAT-ANZ both rank you (UNSW, Monash undergraduate). UNSW interviews the applicants with the highest combined ranking on selection rank and UCAT-ANZ overall score, and is explicit that your results will not be averaged — you need sufficiently high marks on both. Monash calls its December interview round on UCAT-ANZ alone, but the January round uses an equally-weighted combination of UCAT-ANZ total score and ATAR aggregate, and the final ranking rests on three equally weighted components: Year 12 results, UCAT-ANZ and the MMI.
• ATAR as a pure hurdle (Western Sydney, Charles Sturt). Clear the threshold — 95.50 standard, 93.50 for Greater Western Sydney residents, 91.50 via the Rural Entry Admission Scheme — and ATAR stops ranking you entirely. UCAT-ANZ decides who is interviewed, and the final offer is 75% interview and 25% UCAT-ANZ.
• No admissions test at all (JCU). JCU uses neither UCAT-ANZ nor GAMSAT. Selection rests on your academic record and a written online application, and no ATAR adjustment scheme — Regional Preference Scheme, Educational Access Scheme or Subject Adjustment Scheme — is available to Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science applicants.
• ATAR-heavy ranking (Flinders, UTAS). Flinders ranks its Year-12 pathway on Year 12 subject results (90%) and a UCAT-ANZ-derived score (10%) — the most academically weighted route in the country. UTAS uses ATAR as its primary ranking method (minimum 95, including any adjustment for rural status) and applies UCAT-ANZ only as a secondary method to separate applicants on the same ATAR. Adelaide does not belong in this group: its 40% academic weight sits alongside 40% interview and 20% UCAT-ANZ in the published offer ranking.
• Interview as binary gate. Most schools use the interview/MMI as a pass/fail with cohort-based ranking. Strong interview lifts you above similar-ranked applicants; weak interview eliminates you entirely.
• Interview weighted into composite. A weighted composite is the norm rather than the exception. Adelaide ranks on academic score 40%, interview 40% and UCAT-ANZ 20%. UWA ranks on ATAR 30%, interview 50% and UCAT-ANZ 20%, or for rural applicants ATAR 22.5%, interview 37.5%, UCAT-ANZ 15% and a rurality rating 25%. Monash weights Year 12 results, UCAT-ANZ and the MMI in equal thirds. Western Sydney is the outlier in the other direction: 75% interview and 25% UCAT-ANZ, with ATAR only a threshold.

Australian undergraduate medicine ATAR cut-offs have been broadly stable over the last five cycles, with a few exceptions worth noting:

• Top-tier programmes drifted up. UNSW, Monash undergraduate and Adelaide saw selection-rank cut-offs creep from ~98.5 in 2021 to ~99.0-99.5 in 2024-2025. Pandemic-era ATAR inflation contributed; demand for medicine remained high while supply was flat.
• Newer and rural-mission programmes held steady. Curtin, WSU, JCU maintained selection-rank cut-offs in the 95-97 range across the period. Rural and BMP allocation absorbed a wider applicant base.
• The /2700 UCAT-ANZ scale change (2025 sitting, 2026 entry) cleared the noise. The July–August 2024 sitting still contained Abstract Reasoning and produced a four-subtest total out of 3600 (mean 2588, 9th decile 3060). Abstract Reasoning was gone from the July–August 2025 sitting, whose three-subtest cognitive total runs 900–2700 (mean 1941, 9th decile 2310). Dropping a subtest is not a linear rescale, so an old /3600 figure cannot be converted by multiplying by 0.75, and cohort-on-cohort comparisons across the change-year are unreliable.
• Indigenous and Rural Pathway cut-offs are not directly comparable to standard pathway. Pathway-specific cut-offs reflect smaller cohort sizes and explicit equity adjustments, not lower expectations of capability.

Predicting future cut-offs is unreliable. Plan to be competitive at a selection rank 1-2 points above the previous cycle's cut-off to absorb normal year-on-year drift.