Expected Exam Date
September 10 (Thu), 2020
When it comes to medical universities of Italy, there are more than 15 universities operating their own “English” curriculums with more international backgrounds than any other majors at the level of Bachelor’s degrees. To be precise, these “6-year” English medical curriculums are designed as “bachelor’s + master’s” joint degree course, which allows “high school graduates without college/university degrees” to start their medical studies in English language and awards “master’s” degree or M.D. (*different from M.D. Ph.D.), which are internationally accredited, not to mention all European Union member states.
General Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy are 3 majors available at Italian medical universities.
For admission testing, these Italian medical universities have adopted either IMAT (*International Medical Admissions Test) or its similar but alternative tests, including UKCAT. Specifically, all “public” universities accept their students from a single session of IMAT (*usually held in the middle of Sep, followed by the result announcement and beginning of first semester in Oct.) For this “single” IMAT, all applicants are required to register online in June/July, apart from their “pre-enrollment” and “declaration of value” procedures exclusively required for non-EU applicants.
The IMAT is composed of the following sections:
- Logical Reasoning
- General Knowledge
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Math & Physics
In theory, most questions might be answered correctly by the test takers, who are expected to graduated “high school,” not college/university level of higher education. Therefore, it is quite often the case for the applicants to review some of SAT/AP subject tests. Also, more than 20% of the entire test takers are from the UK, Canada, and the US, but many of those applicants have not scored more than 30 points out of 90. This, somehow, indicates it is more of “fast to read and quick to answer” the question, not just a matter of “difficult” question in each subject.
As of Sep, 2019, the test consists of 60 multiple choice questions altogether, and the applicants are given 100 minutes. The average score of “admitted” students ranges between 45 and 60 (*out of 90 points as possible maximum score,) varying from each university and year. From this perspective, it is quite evident the test is quite competitive and difficult, with an approximation of 50-65% correct answers as “possible admitted scores.”
Here are the international locations where IMAT is administered.
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Canada
- Cyprus
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hong Kong
- India
- Israel
- Italy (: Bari, Bologna, Messina, Milan, Naples, Padova, Pavia, Rome, Siena, and Turin)
- Poland
- Portugal
- Saudi Arabia
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- UAE
- UK
- US
For non-EU applicants, “pre-enrollment” and “declaration of value” are essential procedures, which are required by “appropriate” Italian consulates/embassies whose jurisdiction governs the region where graduated high schools are located. Also, there is separate quota designated for non-EU applicants, which takes up around 30-40% of the entire number of spots.