What is a Good Admissions Test Score? Cambridge Edition

If the course you’re applying for at Cambridge requires an admissions test, you will want to prepare to make sure you get the best possible score. But what kind of score should you be aiming for? Without official grade boundaries as in the GCSE or A-level system it can be hard to know what mark will impress admissions tutors. In this blog post, we’ll take you through what constitutes a good score for a few admissions tests using data from the most recent admissions cycle (2023/24). We have this data for every test taken for Oxford and Cambridge entry for the past several years, so get in contact with us if you would like to discuss your specific situation.

It is important to bear in mind that no score will guarantee you an interview or an offer. Academic grades are also essential in determining whether you will be selected for interview, and ultimately admissions tutors will consider your application as a whole. Moreover, what constitutes a “good score” will vary year on year depending on the scores of that year’s cohort, so it is difficult to know in advance if your score is among the best for that year. It’s also the case that certain courses put more weight on the admissions test score in the admissions process. For example, the TSA, PAT, and MAT tests at Oxford all have a long history, and tend to be very good predictors of whether applicants reach interview and eventually get a place. For Cambridge, there are fewer pre-interview tests, and more college-dependent tests at interview. Nevertheless, it is useful to consider the scores of successful applicants from recent years in pre-interview tests so you know roughly what to aim for.

The Law National Aptitude Test (LNAT)

Applicants to Cambridge Law have been required to sit the LNAT (The Law National Aptitude Test) since 2022. The following table shows the Average results for Section A and Section B of the test amongst all applicants and offer holders in the 2023/24 admissions cycle.

The UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test)

Cambridge medicine applicants have been required to sit the UCAT for the past few years, however they do not appear to publish data yet on admissions statistics for the test. As a result, we present below the statistics issued by Oxford university for the latest admissions cycle (2023/24). The rough benchmark presented by the data is roughly applicable to Cambridge applicants, and we will update this page in due course with Cambridge-specific information.

As we see from the spread of results, Oxford Medicine applicants need to be reaching roughly 3000 points overall before they stand a higher chance of being invited for interview than not. We can expect a roughly similar 'benchmark' for Cambridge admissions.

Economics: The Test of Mathematics for University Admissions (TMUA)

In recent years, the TMUA has been used by Cambridge for Economics and Computer Science. Below are the statistics that Cambridge have released regarding Economics offer holders and their TMUA results (separates per section of the paper)

Engineering and Science Admissions Test (ESAT)

The ESAT (Engineering and Science Admissions Test) is used by Cambridge for applicants to Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine. Unfortunately, Cambridge does not publish the statistics for admissions to its courses in terms of ESAT score, but we can take a look at the overall distribution of ESAT scores from the first sitting (i.e. the sitting which applicants to Cambridge must sit) to give us a better idea of score distribution.

The charts are divided per paper, since applicants do not all take the same set of papers. 

Mathematics 1

Mathematics 2

Physics

Chemistry

Biology

When looking at these results, as a general rule of thumb you should be looking to exceed the mean score in order to stand in good stead of being invited to interview.

At-Interview Tests 

Cambridge uses ‘at-interview’ tests for Classics, courses involving Languages, Architecture, Archaeology, History of Art, Philosophy, Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion, and college-dependent tests for most remaining courses. 

These vary widely in format and weighting, but share the similarity that they aim to assess skills and potential rather than knowledge. Core skills and competencies take longer than knowledge to build, and so we encourage applicants to work on these as soon as possible.