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 live table of every Australian undergraduate programme with its current ATAR cut-off, UCAT-ANZ threshold and intake size.

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 age cohort (every Australian aged 16-21 in a given year, not just those who sat year 12). An ATAR of 99.00 means you outranked 99% of your age cohort. 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. Most medical school cut-offs published online refer to the selection rank, not the raw ATAR.

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.

Cut-offs are published per school for the previous cycle's actual lowest-admitted selection rank. They 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:

• UCAT-ANZ-dominant pre-interview (UNSW, Monash undergraduate). ATAR functions as a threshold gate; UCAT-ANZ drives the pre-interview ranking. Strong UCAT-ANZ matters more than the difference between a 99.50 and a 99.85 ATAR at these schools.
• Balanced 50/50 pre-interview (Western Sydney, JCU). ATAR and UCAT-ANZ each carry roughly half the pre-interview weight. Weaknesses in one can be partially offset by strength in the other.
• ATAR-heavy pre-interview (Adelaide, UTAS). ATAR drives the bulk of the pre-interview ranking. Above the UCAT-ANZ threshold, additional UCAT-ANZ points matter less than ATAR points.
• 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. Some schools (Monash undergraduate is the main example) build a final composite with interview as a percentage weight. Each interview station contributes to the composite explicitly.

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 scale change (2024) cleared the noise. Switching from the historical /3600 score to the /2700 cognitive scale forced schools to re-base their thresholds. 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.