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What Is a Good ESAT Score? Cambridge and Imperial Data (2026)
- Published:
- Updated: September 1, 2026
- By Miguel
A good ESAT score is 6.0 or above per module. That puts you at or above the average Cambridge offer holder on most courses, and 7.0 or higher places you in roughly the top 10% of all test takers. Neither UAT-UK nor the universities publish official cut-offs, so these bands come from primary data: Freedom of Information (FOI) releases covering every Natural Sciences and Engineering applicant to Cambridge in the 2025 cycle, more than 5,700 applicants in all, plus Imperial’s official outcomes dashboard, read department by department. If you have not sat a full paper yet, our free ESAT practice tests will give you a score to hold against everything below.
How the ESAT is scored
Each ESAT module has 27 multiple-choice questions, one raw mark each, with no negative marking. Most applicants sit three modules, so 81 raw marks are in play, but raw marks are never reported. Instead each module is converted to a scale from 1.0 (low) to 9.0 (high), reported to one decimal place. The conversion is not a fixed lookup table: UAT-UK statistically equates scores across different test versions, so a raw mark is worth more on a harder paper.
- Scored 1.0–9.0 per module
- 27 questions per module
- No negative marking
- Typical candidate scores ≈ 4.5
- Top 10% score ≈ 7.0
Two anchors from UAT-UK’s own explanation of results are the closest thing to official grade boundaries that exists: the test is designed so that a typical candidate scores around 4.5, and roughly 10% of candidates score above 7.0. In the 2025/26 sitting the most common scores clustered around 4.0 to 4.5 in every module, and only around 1 to 2% of candidates reached 9.0.
What counts as a good ESAT score?
Averaging across everything below, here is the honest quick answer, before we get into what each university’s data actually shows.
| Score per module | What it means |
|---|---|
| 4.0–4.5 | Around the global average. Below the typical offer holder at Cambridge and Imperial, but not disqualifying on its own. |
| 5.0–6.0 | Competitive. Around the typical successful Imperial applicant, and the middle of the Cambridge offer-holder pack. |
| 6.0–7.0 | Strong. At or above the average Cambridge offer holder on most courses. |
| 7.0+ | Top ≈10% of all test takers. Comfortably above the average offer holder everywhere. |
| 8.0+ | Exceptional, but still no guarantee: even in the 8.0+ band, around 40% of Cambridge Natural Sciences applicants did not receive an offer. |
The ESAT is neither a formality nor a verdict. In the Cambridge data, a strong score roughly triples your chances against an average one, yet four in ten of the very highest scorers were still rejected, and nearly one in five successful Biological Natural Sciences applicants scored below the global median. The interview and the rest of the application carry real weight.
Raw marks to ESAT score: an evidence-based conversion
UAT-UK has never published a raw-to-scaled table for the ESAT. But Cambridge released the official 2023 conversion tables for the ESAT’s predecessors (the ENGAA and NSAA) under FOI, and those tests used the same 1.0 to 9.0 scale, the same no-negative-marking format and the same equating philosophy. On the 2023 ENGAA, a 4.5 corresponded to roughly 45 to 53% of questions correct, a 7.0 to roughly 73 to 78%, and a 9.0 to about 90%. Translating those percentages onto the ESAT’s 27-question modules, and holding UAT-UK’s two official anchors fixed, gives this estimate.
| ESAT score | Estimated raw marks (out of 27) | Roughly % correct |
|---|---|---|
| 3.0 | 8–10 | 30–37% |
| 4.5 | 12–14 | 45–52% |
| 5.5 | 15–17 | 55–63% |
| 6.5 | 17–19 | 63–70% |
| 7.0 | 19–21 | 70–78% |
| 8.0 | 21–23 | 78–85% |
| 9.0 | 24–27 | 89%+ |
Treat any single row as ±2 raw marks. The equating exists precisely because papers differ in difficulty, the test-taking population changed when Imperial, Oxford and UCL joined, and near the ends of the scale one raw mark can move the scaled score a long way (on the 2023 ENGAA, 17/20 scored 8.2 and 18/20 scored 9.0). Use the table to set raw-mark targets in practice papers, not to reverse-engineer your exact score.
Cambridge: what the data shows
Cambridge uses the ESAT for Natural Sciences, Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and Veterinary Medicine. It states there is no cut-off score, and the data backs that up, but scores clearly matter a great deal. Two Freedom of Information (FOI) releases contain the individual module scores and outcomes of all 2,574 Natural Sciences applicants and all 3,188 Engineering applicants who sat the ESAT in the 2025 cycle. We analysed both datasets in full.
Natural Sciences
| Average score per module | Physical NatSci | Biological NatSci |
|---|---|---|
| Offer holders, mean | 6.20 (median 6.03) | 5.64 (median 5.53) |
| Offer holders, middle 50% | 5.17–7.27 | 4.73–6.57 |
| Non-offer holders, mean | 4.70 | 4.57 |
| All applicants, mean | 5.10 | 4.84 |
| Offers / applicants | 381 / 1,435 (27%) | 287 / 1,131 (25%) |
The typical successful physical scientist scored about 6 per module, roughly 18.5 out of 27 in total, comfortably above the global median of 4.5. By module, offer holders on the physical route averaged 6.00 in Mathematics 1, 6.19 in Physics, 6.54 in Chemistry and 6.29 in Mathematics 2; on the biological route they averaged 4.89 in Mathematics 1, 6.17 in Biology and 5.95 in Chemistry. Mathematics 1 was consistently the hardest module to score well on.
Knowing the benchmark is not the same as reaching it. Our tutors sat the ESAT themselves and coach it one to one, against the criteria the universities actually apply.
Book a free consultationEngineering
| Group | Average per module | Total (out of 27) |
|---|---|---|
| Offer holders (390) | 6.28 (median 6.02) | 18.8 |
| Home offer holders (252) | 5.73 | 17.2 |
| International offer holders (138) | 7.28 | 21.8 |
| Non-offer holders | 4.54 | 13.6 |
| All applicants | 4.76 | 14.3 |
Engineering is noticeably harsher than Natural Sciences. Only around 12% of ESAT-takers received an offer, and scoring below 4.0 was close to disqualifying: 2 offers among more than a thousand applicants in that range. Offer holders scored almost identically across all three modules, at about 6.2 to 6.3 each. The fee-status gap is stark: international offer holders averaged 7.28 per module against 5.73 for home offer holders, so the realistic international benchmark is 7.0+, not 6.0.
Your chance of an offer, by score band
Read the chart both ways. Scores move the needle a lot: going from the 4s to the 6s roughly triples your chance of an offer on every course. And scores decide nothing on their own: applicants averaging above 8.0 were still rejected around 40 to 50% of the time, while 9% of successful Physical NatSci applicants and 18% of successful Biological applicants averaged below the global median of 4.5. The winter pool tells the same story: 546 NatSci applicants were pooled, 132 received offers through it, and pooled offer holders averaged 5.5, noticeably below direct offer holders.
Imperial: a different bar for every department
Imperial used the ESAT for 2025 entry across most of its Faculty of Engineering and for Physics, publishing limited statistics in an interactive dashboard on its admissions-test pages, so that dashboard is the authoritative source. Imperial reports total scores across three modules, out of 27. We went through it department by department.
| Department | Offer holders | Interviewed, unsuccessful | Not interviewed | Offer rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aeronautics | 17.5 | 15.5 | 8.2 | 20% |
| Physics | 17.5 | – | 10.4 | 37% |
| Electrical & Electronic Eng | 16.6 | 11.8 | 11.2 | 26% |
| Mechanical Engineering | 15.8 | 15.3 | 10.0 | 17% |
| Chemical Engineering | 14.2 | 14.2 | 5.9 | 44% |
| Civil & Environmental Eng | 12.6 | – | 3.0 | 58% |
| Design Engineering | 8.9 | 11.4 | 7.3 | 25% |
The spread is enormous. A total of 17 to 18, about 5.8 per module, is the norm for successful Aeronautics and Physics applicants, while successful Design Engineering applicants averaged 8.9, below the global average. Fee status matters too: successful overseas applicants outscored successful home applicants in every department. In Physics the successful means were 14.0 for Home widening-participation applicants, 16.2 for other Home applicants and 19.4 for Overseas; in Electrical and Electronic Engineering they were 12.2, 14.2 and 19.8. Imperial reads scores in context, so the score you need genuinely depends on your background, and overseas applicants face the stiffest effective bar. The same pattern runs through Imperial’s home and overseas admissions data.
Oxford, UCL and other universities
From 2026 entry Oxford requires the ESAT for Physics and Physics and Philosophy, replacing the PAT, and UCL uses it for Electronic and Electrical Engineering. Neither has published outcome data from its first ESAT cohort yet. What UCL does publish is the field the test is filtering: 2,200 applications for 139 places, a UCL acceptance rate of 6.3% for the course. Until they do, the Cambridge Physical NatSci benchmarks (aim for 6+, ideally 7+) are the nearest proxy for Oxford Physics, and Imperial’s engineering figures (offer holders around 5 to 5.5 per module) are the better comparison for UCL.
What you should aim for
| Applying for | Realistic target | Stretch target |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge Physical NatSci | 6.0 | 7.0+ |
| Cambridge Biological NatSci | 5.5 | 6.5+ |
| Cambridge Engineering (Home) | 6.0 | 7.0+ |
| Cambridge Engineering (International) | 7.0 | 8.0+ |
| Imperial Aeronautics / Physics | 6.0 (18/27 total) | 7.0+ |
| Imperial EEE / Mechanical | 5.5 (16–17/27 total) | 6.5+ |
| Imperial Chemical / Civil / Design | 4.5–5.0 (13–15/27 total) | 6.0+ |
| Oxford Physics (proxy) | 6.0 | 7.0+ |
In raw-mark terms, using the conversion above: a 6.0 target means roughly 16 to 18 correct answers out of 27 per module in a typical practice paper, and a 7.0 means about 19 to 21. Prepare seriously for the test, then prepare just as seriously for the interview, because the data shows both halves decide the outcome.
Sitting the TMUA for maths, computing or economics instead? We have run the same analysis on that test, with the same FOI-first approach, in What Is a Good TMUA Score?
Want expert help with your ESAT preparation?
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Scores are one gate among several. For the wider picture of offers and places, see our guide to the Cambridge acceptance rate.
Find this article useful? Check out our other resources for students sitting the ESAT.
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ESAT Past Papers and Resources
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- University of Cambridge FOI 2025/1026: per-applicant ESAT data, Natural Sciences 2025 cycle
- University of Cambridge FOI 2025/1098: per-applicant ESAT and TMUA data, Engineering and Computer Science
- University of Cambridge FOI 2025/1028: Engineering ESAT averages by college
- University of Cambridge FOI 2026/485: Engineering offer-holder ESAT scores by domicile
- Imperial College London: Understanding your ESAT and TMUA scores (outcomes dashboard)
- UAT-UK: ESAT Explanation of Results, October 2025
- UAT-UK: the ESAT (format, modules and scoring)
- University of Cambridge FOI: ENGAA and NSAA 2023 score conversion tables
- University of Oxford, Department of Physics: the ESAT
- UCL Faculty of Engineering: ESAT for Electronic and Electrical Engineering applicants
Frequently asked questions
In the 2025 cycle, successful Physical Natural Sciences applicants averaged 6.20 per module, Biological Natural Sciences 5.64 and Engineering 6.28. Anything above 6.0 per module puts you at or above the typical offer holder; 7.0+ puts you in the top 10% of all test takers.
It depends heavily on the department. Successful Aeronautics and Physics applicants averaged 17.5 out of 27 in total (about 5.8 per module) in the 2025 cycle, while successful Chemical Engineering applicants averaged 14.2 and Design Engineering just 8.9. Around 5.5 to 6.0 per module is competitive for the most selective departments.
A 4.5 is around the global median, so it is an average score. Offers do happen at that level, especially for Cambridge Natural Sciences, where 16 to 26% of applicants averaging in the 4s received one, but for Cambridge Engineering the offer rate in the 4s was only about 7%, and most successful applicants scored noticeably higher.
No. Both universities state there is no cut-off, and the data confirms offers at surprisingly low scores: the lowest-scoring successful NatSci applicant in 2025 averaged 2.3. In practice, though, very low scores make an offer unlikely; below 4.0, Cambridge Engineering made 2 offers among more than 1,000 applicants.
Our best estimate is about 19 to 21 correct answers out of 27 in a module, roughly 70 to 78%. This is inferred from the official conversion tables of the ESAT’s predecessor tests and UAT-UK’s published design anchors, so treat it as accurate to within about two raw marks.
In practice, yes. International offer holders for Cambridge Engineering averaged 7.28 per module against 5.73 for home offer holders, and at Imperial successful overseas applicants outscored successful home applicants in every department. Both universities read scores in context, and the international field is stronger on average.
