Free. No signup. Official 2024-25 figures.

What is a good ESAT score?

A 7.0 puts you in the top 10%, and 4.5 is the middle of the cohort. UAT-UK fixed the scale that way before anyone sat the test, and in October 2024 it landed almost exactly: across all five modules the median came out at 4.5 and the 90th percentile at 7.0.

“Is 6.56.5 competitive?” has two answers: where it sits in the whole ESAT field, and what the exact course has published about past outcomes. There is no universal pass mark or course cut-off. Compare both below.

Every number on this page comes from the UAT-UK ESAT Technical Report 2024-25 or the official ESAT site, cited beside the claim. Nothing is estimated.

Put a score on the real distribution

11,919 people sat the ESAT for 2025 entry. Everyone takes Mathematics 1; most take two more modules, and the commonest combination by a distance is Mathematics 1, Mathematics 2 and Physics, chosen by 72% of them. Here is what they scored.

Where does a score land?

11,919 candidates, October 2024 and January 2025
5%10%15%123456789mediantop 10%5.4Candidate share
5.4

Top quarter

Above the 75th percentile (5.4), below the 90th (6.7). 21% of Mathematics 1 candidates scored in a higher band, and 8% were in the same band as you, 5.25 to 5.75.

Read it loosely. Mathematics 1 scaled scores carry a standard error of 0.67 to 0.75 (Table 18), and a true score sits within one standard error of the reported one about 68% of the time. So 4.7 and 6.2 are not results you can reliably tell apart.

Mean
4.46
Median
4.2
Top quarter from
5.4
Top 10% from
6.7

Is 6.56.5 competitive for your course?

Imperial publishes historic 2025 outcome means by department. Cambridge publishes how it uses the test, but no offer-holder average for any ESAT course. Choose the exact course to see the number that exists, or the reasoning that replaces one when it does not.

Cambridge and Imperial, course by course

What did typical offer-holders score?

Cambridge · 2027 entry

Engineering

Mathematics 1, Mathematics 2 and Physics.

6.56.5

Top quarter. Top quarter from 5.45.4; top tenth from 6.76.7.

6.56.5

Top quarter. Top quarter from 5.55.5; top tenth from 6.86.8.

6.56.5

Top quarter. Top quarter from 5.65.6; top tenth from 6.86.8.

Your score vs the field

Required-module mean
Your mean 6.56.5October cohort middle 4.54.5October top tenth 7.07.0

The honest answer

There is no honest Cambridge offer-holder number to put beside your 6.56.5 module mean.

33 of your 33 selected scores reach the top quarter of their published module fields. Cambridge calls a strong test performance usually necessary for interview, but publishes no course average or cut-off.

All three modules are fixed. Cambridge says a strong admissions-test performance is usually needed for interview, then reads the scores with the rest of the application.

Cambridge admissions-test policy2027 module requirements

Imperial publishes a department-level sum of required module scores. The per-module figure shown here is that sum divided by the number of required modules. It is our arithmetic for readability, not a second Imperial statistic and not a UAT-UK overall score. Sources checked 6 August 2026.

What the number actually is

One score per module, and no total

You get a separate 1.0 to 9.0 score for every module you sit, to one decimal place. There is no overall ESAT score. Any guide quoting you a combined figure has invented it.

Technical report, page 4

The middle was set before anyone sat it

UAT-UK pinned the median candidate to 4.5 and the 90th percentile to 7.0, then drew a straight line between those two points to turn ability into a score. Scores below 1.0 and above 9.0 are capped.

Technical report, page 7, Tables 2 and 3

Modules do not compare

A 5.4 in Biology and a 5.4 in Mathematics 2 are different achievements. Each module is equated and scaled on its own, and the report is explicit that the scores cannot be aggregated.

Technical report, page 5

January scores run lower than October

Mathematics 1 had a median of 4.5 in October and 4.0 in January. Cambridge applicants have to sit the October window, which is where 9,141 of the 11,919 candidates tested.

Technical report, pages 8 and 9

It is built to be hard on purpose

27 questions in 40 minutes per module, no calculator. UAT-UK tells candidates not to expect the marks they get in school exams, and the report found Physics and Mathematics 2 were too difficult for many people in this cycle.

Official ESAT site; technical report, pages 3 and 33

Guessing costs nothing

No marks are deducted for a wrong answer, so a blank is strictly worse than a guess. Almost everyone uses the full 40 minutes: the median module time was exactly 40:00 for four of the five modules.

Official ESAT site; technical report, page 35

What universities do with it

Four use the ESAT: Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and UCL. Your result reaches them on its own. UAT-UK matches the score to your UCAS application course by course and sends it to any course that requires the test, and you cannot pick who sees it.

“UAT-UK does not provide any grade boundaries or a pass mark.”

University Admissions Tests UK, Test Results

That one sentence is the whole answer to “what do I need for Cambridge Engineering”. There is no published number, and if someone quotes you one, ask them where it came from. Imperial says the same thing and then says what it does instead:

“We consider your ESAT and TMUA scores alongside other parts of your UCAS application, like your personal statement, when we decide whether to invite you to an interview or to make you an offer.”

Imperial College London, Understanding your ESAT and TMUA scores
Imperial College London
Lists the modules each department requires, and states in its own words that there are no grade boundaries or pass marks. Scores are read next to the personal statement when Imperial decides on interviews and offers.
University of Cambridge
Applicants must sit the October window. No threshold is published, and the technical report says only that the test helps universities separate strong candidates with similar academic profiles.
University of Oxford
Named by UAT-UK as an ESAT user. No threshold is published.
UCL
Named by UAT-UK as an ESAT user. No threshold is published.

So what should you aim for?

Clear the median for your module and you are ahead of half the room. Clear 7.0 and you are in the top tenth. Between those two points the exact decimal matters less than it looks: the report gives scaled-score standard errors of 0.67 to 0.97 depending on module, so a 5.6 and a 6.4 in Physics are about one standard error apart and not a difference you can lean on.

The question with more in it is which module is costing you. Look at the distributions above and you can see Physics and Mathematics 2 bunching low, which the report puts down to those forms being too hard for much of the cohort. Mathematics 1 is the one everybody sits, and it was also the most reliable module of the five, so it is the score doing the most work in an admissions tutor’s hands.

Sources

UAT-UK ESAT Technical Report 2024-25 (PDF): Pearson VUE for UAT-UK. Scaled score summary statistics and percentiles, Table 5, page 9. Binned distributions, Figures 1 to 5, pages 9 to 11. Scaling method, Tables 2 and 3, page 7. Scaled score reliability and standard error, Table 18, page 34.

UAT-UK, Test Results: the score scale, the absence of grade boundaries, and how results reach universities through UCAS matching.

UAT-UK, about the ESAT: test format, module choice, no pass or fail, no penalty for wrong answers, and the four universities that use the test.

Imperial College London, Understanding your ESAT and TMUA scores: how one of the four reads the score, plus its historic 2025 department outcome dashboard.

UniGenius is an independent study resource. We are not affiliated with UAT-UK, Pearson VUE or any of the universities named above.

So which number would you get?

The chart tells you what a score means. It cannot tell you which one you would walk out with. Our diagnostic can: about ten minutes of real ESAT questions, adapting as you go, and at the end a level for each topic you sat plus the first gap worth closing. No account, no card.

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