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With the ISAT, there are two ways to measure your score - what you want versus what you need. We’ll explore both of those viewpoints so you can feel confident about the score you receive and your potential offers/outcomes.
The ISAT is made up of two sections as outlined in depth here. Each Section offers a total of 200 marks which is averaged across Sections for an overall score out of 200 on the ISAT. So while this seems like quite a literal exam, the tricky part is how these scores correlate to rankings as the ranking is what will be used in your application. To this end, you need to do well in both Sections.
The score to percentile curve changes year on year ever so slightly so there is an element of variability in how your score will translate in a given test cycle. However, don’t pay too much mind to this as the fluctuation is usually in the range of +/- 1%. So very minimal shifts and this is not going to be the reason you do/don’t get an offer.
A brief table is shown below outlining scores and how they correlate to percentile rankings. As you can see, once you start to score above 160 your score becomes quite competitive.
A side note to the above table is where the 50th percentile is: a score of 130. This tells us that the ISAT is a hard test as people on average, score 65% raw on the exam. There are many reasons for this including time pressure, the question types/styles, the psychometric nature of the test, and student archetype. But, it means that until you start to hit a raw score of 80%, your raw score will be less than your percentile score.
There are many ways to get a good ISAT score. Let’s take 180 as an example, around the 92nd percentile. There are a few ways we could get this score shown in the table below. The important thing here is that not all scores are interpreted the same.
You’re probably wondering why they aren’t all interpreted the same. Well that’s because it’s very rare for a candidate to be an all rounder and all rounders are very valuable. This is why the 180/180 is more favourable to a 200/160 or 160/200. Equally, Section 2 is rated slightly lower via interpretation as these skills are more common in candidates (most students come from a STEM background). This is important to know as if you want to stand out, you need to differentiate yourself from your peers.
This isn’t rocket science - we want the highest score possible BUT as we saw in the previous Section, we want it in a well rounded way. We need to have our attitude geared this way to ensure we don’t allow complacency to creep in. We should study like we’re capable and going to score 200 even though, it’s more than likely that we won’t. But if we “miss” on scoring 200 with that attitude we’ll at least come close whereas, if we study like we want a 170 and “miss”, we’ll get a score that might not be competitive enough.
This brings us to what really matters - what the Medical and Dental Schools need for us to be considered competitively for a place.
Firstly, we need to remember that selection isn’t one dimensional and our Academics and Interview performance will be factored into the final selection process. With that said, let’s assume we’re strong academically, so we can see the effect of the ISAT score.
A minimum score we need is 160. While we have seen cases of students scoring sub 160 getting in, these were very contextual applications so we should consider 160 a hard floor from a scoring perspective. You should be aiming for a minimum of 180 and if you do that, you should be feeling confident in your application if all other factors are in good stead.
From there, if you’re selected for an Interview the Interview will then play a pivotal role in selection. So be sure you don’t forget that in the grand scheme of things - we don’t want to fall at the final hurdle!
