What does your UCAT-ANZ total mean at New Zealand's two medical schools?
Only two New Zealand schools use UCAT-ANZ — and they use it in opposite ways. Auckland weights it at roughly 15% of final selection, so a higher score genuinely lifts your rank. Otago treats it as a pass/fail threshold gate that carries zero weight once cleared. Enter your three cognitive subtest scores plus your SJT band and this page gives you a per-school verdict — a positioning tool, not a prediction model.
Position your total for Auckland and Otago
Enter your three cognitive subtest scores (each 300–900 on the /2700 scale) and optionally your SJT band. We compute your total cognitive score, place it against the official 2025 UCAT-ANZ distribution anchors, and give you a separate verdict for each of the two New Zealand programmes that use the test. Your scores are stored in your browser only — never transmitted to our servers.
This is a positioning tool, not a prediction model
Neither Auckland nor Otago publishes a fixed UCAT-ANZ total cut-off — the bands in this calculator are our evidence-based estimates. And in New Zealand, academics do the heavy lifting: Auckland's ranking is 60% GPA and 25% MMI before UCAT-ANZ's 15% is counted, and Otago selects purely on HSFY academic ranking once its gate is cleared. Use this tool to decide where your prep hours matter most, not as a go/no-go on your application.
How Auckland and Otago actually use UCAT-ANZ
Australia has dozens of UCAT-ANZ programmes with cut-off tables; New Zealand has exactly two — and they sit at opposite ends of how an admissions test can be used. Misreading which regime applies to you is the single most common NZ UCAT mistake: over-prepping for a test that cannot lift your Otago rank, or under-prepping for a test that is 15% of your Auckland ranking.
Auckland MBChB ranks First Year applicants on GPA 60% + MMI 25% + UCAT-ANZ 15%, above a first-year GPA 6.0 gateway in the BHSc or BSc Biomed pathway. UCAT-ANZ is a genuine ranking component: every extra point improves your position, even though GPA and the MMI carry the other 85% of the weight.
Otago MBChB uses UCAT-ANZ only as an eligibility gate — for 2026 entry, Verbal Reasoning at or above the 20th percentile AND Situational Judgement above the 10th percentile. Once cleared it carries zero weight: selection is purely HSFY academic ranking. A high UCAT-ANZ does not improve your Otago rank.
Dentistry is different again: Otago removed UCAT-ANZ from BDS admissions from the 2025 intake onwards. If dentistry is your target, your UCAT-ANZ score plays no role — BDS selection combines the HSFY academic score with a Zoom interview for every shortlisted applicant.
2027 entry is the last cycle in which Auckland uses UCAT-ANZ. From 2028 entry, applicants sit CASPer instead — the MMI is retained and the GPA 6.0 gateway is unchanged. If you are earlier in school and targeting 2028+ entry at Auckland, your aptitude-test prep will be CASPer, not UCAT-ANZ.
The two NZ TrueScores — and what they actually claim
Because neither university publishes a total cut-off, we publish our own evidence-based estimates — built from the official 2025 UCAT-ANZ distribution (mean ~1941, median ~1930, 8th decile ~2190, 9th decile ~2310 on the /2700 scale), each school's published selection rules, and reputable percentile reporting.
Confidence: moderate. Because UCAT-ANZ is weighted, this is a competitive target, not a gate. Prep-company reporting puts successful applicants broadly at the 80th–90th percentile, which maps to roughly 2190–2310 on the 2025 distribution — we quote 2300 as the standard competitive band. A lower score does not exclude you; it means GPA and MMI must do more of the work.
Confidence: high on the mechanism, indicative on the number. The real gate is per-subtest — VR ≥ 20th percentile and SJT > 10th percentile — not a total. A total around the 20th percentile overall (~1700–1850) generally clears those subtest bars, so ~1750 is an indicative conversion only. It is the bar to pass, not a competitive target: above it, extra UCAT points buy you nothing at Otago.
The honesty statement: these numbers are ours, not the universities'. Auckland and Otago publish selection rules (weightings and percentile gates) but no fixed UCAT-ANZ total cut-offs, so any single number on this page is an estimate — and we label every one of them as such, with the confidence level, the rationale, and the sources attached in the calculator above. We refresh the estimates annually against the newest official UCAT-ANZ statistics and each school's current-cycle rules.
The UCAT-ANZ calendar for NZ applicants
UCAT-ANZ is the same test for New Zealand and Australian applicants — same subtests, same /2700 scale, same scoring cohort — so the calendar facts are shared. What changes is what is at stake: for Auckland the sitting feeds a 15% ranking component; for Otago it only has to clear the gate. The window runs over a single multi-week period each July: one date, one 2-hour slot, no second sitting in the same cycle.
Booking opens
Booking runs from March to around May. Book early — the convenient dates at the main NZ centres (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin) fill quickly.
Your single sitting
Sit on your booked date. If you mis-time it or underperform, a different score means sitting again the following July and applying in that cycle.
Results and delivery
Your individual result appears on the Pearson VUE candidate portal shortly after sitting. Universities receive verified scores through the official channel in late August / early September — you do not send your score yourself.
Logistics matter more than people expect: a 2-hour test at a centre 90 minutes from home, on your only sitting of the year, is a different experience from sitting it in your own city. If you are outside the four main centres, plan travel and an early night around your booked date.
What to do if your UCAT-ANZ is low
A low UCAT-ANZ closes fewer doors in New Zealand than almost anywhere else — one of the two schools barely uses it, and several NZ pathways do not depend on it at all.
Otago's selection is UCAT-independent once the gate is cleared — HSFY paper marks are essentially everything, with General-pathway offers recently in roughly the 93–99 range. At Auckland, GPA is 60% of the ranking against UCAT-ANZ's 15%. Marginal study hours almost always buy more rank in your HSFY or gateway-year papers than in UCAT re-prep.
Verified Māori and Pacific applicants at Auckland are considered through MAPAS, with a separate admissions panel and a dedicated 5-station specialty interview; Otago runs its Te Kauae Paraoa equivalent sub-pools. These schemes rank you in a different pool rather than waiving test requirements — see our MAPAS guide for eligibility and process.
Auckland's Regional Rural Admission Scheme ranks applicants from rural and regional schooling backgrounds separately, and feeds the MBChB Rural Stream in Phase 1; Otago runs a Rural Origins sub-pool with its own offer range. If you qualify, this changes the competition you face — our RRAS guide covers the eligibility rules.
Both Auckland and Otago admit graduates: finish a bachelor degree, then apply through the graduate category. Auckland's graduate route still ranks on GPA + MMI (+ UCAT-ANZ for its final cycle); Otago's graduate category selects on academic weighted score after the same threshold gate. Our graduate entry guide maps both routes.
Two further options. First, look across the Tasman: Australian schools use UCAT-ANZ very differently — many weight it heavily, but rural-mission and portfolio-based programmes exist too, and NZ citizens are generally eligible domestic-fee applicants — our NZ vs Australia comparison covers the trade-offs. Second, re-sitting the following July is reasonable, but only with a concrete plan for what you will do differently: repeating the same prep rarely moves the score. If you are re-sitting, work with a tutor who knows the ANZ sitting — see our NZ tutor matching page.
Frequently asked questions
UCAT-ANZ prep and tutor matching
Work through subtest-by-subtest strategy and the three-month prep plan in our UCAT-ANZ guide, or get matched with a tutor who knows the July sitting, Auckland's weighting and Otago's gate.
Reviewed by Isaac Butler-King, medical student at the University of Glasgow. Last reviewed: 29 July 2026 · Editorial policy