Magdalen Court School is a Test Centre for the BMAT.

The Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) was pioneered by Cambridge, Oxford and UCL, with the first sitting of the examination taking place in Autumn 2003. It was implemented to assess the lateral thinking and communication capabilities of students applying for high demand medically related degree courses. It seems likely that as the shift of emphasis in candidate selection is extended to include a breadth of non-knowledge based skills, the number of institutions utilising tests such as BMAT will grow in the coming years.

BMAT has been constructed as one of the tools by which it is possible to measure the suitability of an individual’s potential to pursue and succeed in demanding academic disciplines such as biomedical degree courses. Medical and Veterinary schools will, of course, still exercise their own judgement in assessing the suitability of a candidate to practice. However, the test does form a key part of the selection procedure and poor performance will necessarily prevent progression to the much coveted interview stage. As such all students considering universities making use of the test should ensure they are as fully prepared as possible.