How to get into UQ Dental Dentistry

UQ Dental expects Minimum adjusted ATAR 99.0 (or equivalent) plus UCAT ANZ from the year you apply — no interview. Prerequisites (QTAC): English, Literature, English and Literature Extension or English as an Additional Language (Units 3 and 4, C), and Chemistry (Units 3 and 4, C); Biology recommended. Domestic applications go through QTAC only (code 712002; UQ program code 2367).

UQ offers NO guaranteed-entry ATAR for this program — it is listed among UQ's programs with no guarantee — so reaching 99.0 makes you eligible, not admitted. for Dentistry (BDS/DMD) and uses No interview — ATAR threshold then UCAT-ANZ aggregate ranking for interviews in the 2027 Entry cycle.

Entry is undergraduate and selection uses UCAT-ANZ; applications close through GEMSAS or your state TAC (UAC, VTAC, QTAC, SATAC, TISC), and CSP, BMP and full-fee places are all capped, so treat the standard above as a threshold to clear rather than a target to aim at.

This guide is written for 2027 Entry applicants and updated annually before each GEMSAS / UAC cycle. Sources include University of Queensland School of Dentistry's official course page, GEMSAS, the UCAT-ANZ Consortium, ACER (GAMSAT), and direct conversations with current students. Read time: ~12 minutes.

Checked field-by-field against University of Queensland School of Dentistry's official course page on 11 September 2026.

Minimum adjusted ATAR 99.0 (or equivalent) plus UCAT ANZ from the year you apply — no interview. Prerequisites (QTAC): English, Literature, English and Literature Extension or English as an Additional Language (Units 3 and 4, C), and Chemistry (Units 3 and 4, C); Biology recommended. Domestic applications go through QTAC only (code 712002; UQ program code 2367).

UQ offers NO guaranteed-entry ATAR for this program — it is listed among UQ's programs with no guarantee — so reaching 99.0 makes you eligible, not admitted.

Year 12 ATAR (or equivalent international qualification) plus the admission test are the academic gateway; interview performance then determines the final offer.

UCAT-ANZ is a 2-hour computer-based aptitude test (Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, and a separately-banded Situational Judgement Test). Sat between July and early August. The UCAT-ANZ Consortium operates separately from the UK UCAT — scores are NOT interchangeable.

Australia has no equivalent of the UK's single UCAS personal statement. GEMSAS graduate-entry applications use GAMSAT + GPA without a written component; most state-TAC undergraduate applications use ATAR + UCAT-ANZ without a written component. The schools that DO require written content (JCU portfolio, Notre Dame Sydney/Fremantle questionnaire, Wollongong short answers, Bond essays) each ask different, school-specific questions. Treat each school's prompt set as a discrete short-answer test - do not recycle a single document across multiple schools.

Limits are school-specific. JCU portfolio responses: typically 250-500 words per question. Notre Dame questionnaire: 250-400 words per response. Wollongong short answers: ~300 words each. Bond essays: 500 words. Read the current cycle's prompt brief for each school carefully - limits and prompts shift cycle-to-cycle.

Notice: a specific scene rather than a cliché, a precise detail (the nine-minute conversation), and a closing sentence that bridges to the next paragraph. We have a step-by-step written-submissions service if you want a tutor to help shape yours.

UQ Dental selection: No interview — ATAR threshold then UCAT-ANZ aggregate ranking. For 2027 entry, interviews typically take place in No interview. Final decisions are released January — QTAC offer round 14 January 2027 (UQ: offers to the main offer round in January 2027).

At UQ Dental, expect the following from the selection process. Assessment / recorded-interview format - some Australian schools (JCU's Kira Talent recording, Notre Dame Modern Hire) ask one-way recorded responses; others combine panel interviews with practical tasks (group work, written exercises, presentations). Allow 60-90 minutes for a recorded interview or 4-6 hours for a full in-person assessment day.

UQ Dent does not interview. Step 1: applicants must hit adjusted ATAR ≥ 99.00. Step 2: all qualifying applicants are ranked directly on UCAT-ANZ aggregate; ATAR acts as a hurdle, not a differentiator.

UQ's published rule is precise: the UCAT aggregate is the first selection measure, applicants on the same aggregate are ranked by their UCAT ANZ section 4 score, and if that is also tied, by section 1. UQ also lists, among the detailed measures it applies when applicants outnumber places, that applicants without adjustments are considered before applicants with adjustments.

Note that UQ specifies 'the aggregate score from all 4 sections' for dentistry (versus 'the first 3 section scores' for Provisional Medicine); the current UCAT ANZ has four subtests — VR, DM, QR and Situational Judgement — so it is unclear whether UQ's dentistry aggregate now includes SJT.

UQ has not published a clarification, so confirm with UQ Admissions before targeting a specific total. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants are not required to sit UCAT ANZ, with the dentistry exemption tied by UQ's scheme page to its separate admission pathway.

Our panel-interview prep covers ethics frameworks (SPIES, the four pillars), structured behavioural answers (STAR), and live mock interviews with admissions specialists.

The cycle runs roughly January 2025 (start of prep) through GEMSAS preference lock and state-TAC deadlines in September 2026, MMIs in October-December 2026, to first-round offers in December 2026 and course start in late January / early February 2027. Here are the milestones you cannot miss.

UQ Dental sits at the very top of the Australian dental entry range: a minimum ADJUSTED ATAR of 99.0, a median adjusted offer rank of 99.95 at the Semester 1, 2026 intake, and no guaranteed-entry score at all — UQ lists Dental Science (Honours) among its programs with no ATAR guarantee. (We have not verified against every other Australian dental program that it is the single most ATAR-competitive; no admissions centre publishes that comparison.) No interview — selection runs on the ATAR hurdle + UCAT-ANZ aggregate. Co-located with the Oral Health Centre at Herston — Queensland's largest dental teaching facility.

Semester 1, 2026 commencing cohort (QTAC/UQ Student Profile): 111 students in total — 72 (64.9%) from recent secondary education admitted where both ATAR/rank and additional criteria were considered, fewer than 5 admitted on other criteria only, higher-education-study entrants not published, and 24 international (21.6%). The 111 includes international students, so domestic commencers number roughly 87. International indicative tuition AUD $99,600 per year for 2027 — UQ's 'approximate yearly cost of tuition (16 units)', not a whole-of-program fee. UQ notes fees vary with study load and are reviewed each year and may increase, so the five-year total is not simply five times this figure. UQ also lists additional costs including dental instruments and equipment, practice teeth and annual CPR re-certification.