In the Philippines, NMAT stands for the National Medical Admission Test. It is the standardised test you must take before you can be admitted to a Doctor of Medicine programme at any Philippine medical school.
Two things it is not. It is not a licensure exam, so passing it does not let you practise anything. And it is not the same NMAT that appears in Indian search results, which is NMAT by GMAC, a business school admission test run by the Graduate Management Admission Council for MBA and management programmes. Same four letters, entirely different exam.
Who runs it and why it exists
The NMAT was created to raise the standard of who gets into medical school.
Under the Medical Act of 1959, the Board of Medical Education, acting through DECS Order No. 52 series of 1985 and in consultation with the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges Foundation, Inc., required the NMAT as a prerequisite for admission to all medical schools nationwide beginning school year 1986 to 1987.
The Center for Educational Measurement, Inc. (CEM) has been authorised to manage the operation of the NMAT since the test was first administered in December 1985. CEM is a non-stock, non-profit educational testing organisation established in 1978, and it develops the test, administers it, and reports the results.
That division matters. CEM builds and runs the exam. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) sets the policy about what the score means. Neither one admits you to medical school. That decision belongs to the school.
We cover CEM's role in detail in CEM and the NMAT: who runs the exam.
Who is required to take it
CEM's stated position is that those who intend to enrol in a medical degree programme in the Philippines are required to take the NMAT. Eligible candidates are:
- College graduates of any degree programme
- Graduating college students at the end of the current school year
- Second-year students in UP College of Medicine's Integrated Liberal Arts and Medicine (INTARMED) programme, and in UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery's Bachelor of Science in Basic Human Studies (LEAPMed)
- Those who previously took the NMAT but did not reach the minimum cut-off score
- Candidates with valid NMAT eligibility who want to improve their scores
Note the first item. Any degree qualifies you to sit the NMAT. A BS Biology graduate and an AB Communication graduate are equally eligible as far as CEM is concerned. What differs is how well prepared each one is for the science content, and what pre-medical coursework each target medical school separately requires.
If you are still choosing a pre-med course, our guide to the best strand for medicine starts earlier in the pipeline, at senior high.
Foreign applicants are covered by the Consolidated Implementing Guidelines on the Entry and Stay of Foreign Students in the Philippines under Executive Order 285, series of 2000, together with CHED Memorandum Order No. 18, series of 2016.
What the test actually contains
The NMAT is a two-part test with eight subtests, all multiple choice. Part 1 measures mental ability. Part 2 measures academic proficiency in subjects that form the academic background expected of medical school applicants.
| Part | Subtest | Items | Recommended time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verbal (analogies, reading comprehension) | 30 | 30 minutes |
| 1 | Inductive Reasoning (figure series, figure grouping, number and letter series) | 30 | 35 minutes |
| 1 | Quantitative (fundamental operations, problem solving, data interpretation) | 30 | 40 minutes |
| 1 | Perceptual Acuity (hidden figure, mirror image, identical information) | 30 | 30 minutes |
| 2 | Biology | 30 | 30 minutes |
| 2 | Physics | 30 | 30 minutes |
| 2 | Social Science (sociology, anthropology, psychology) | 30 | 30 minutes |
| 2 | Chemistry | 30 | 30 minutes |
CEM allots 2 hours and 15 minutes for Part 1 and 1 hour and 30 minutes for Part 2, with a 10-minute official break between them. The timer starts when you reach the first item of a section and restarts for every section, so it does not include the system check and identity verification beforehand.
CEM notes that the Part 2 items are limited to concepts common and basic to introductory college courses, particularly the degree programmes treated as pre-medical courses. That is a more forgiving description than most people expect, and it is worth reading carefully before you buy a stack of upper-level textbooks.
The exam has been an online computer-based test since August 2020, taken remotely under proctoring.
What the score means
This is where most of the confusion sits, because the NMAT does not report a percentage.
CEM converts raw scores to a scale that accounts for how difficult a particular test form was, so results can be compared across forms. It then reports:
- Standard scores (SS) for each of the eight subtests, on a range of 200 to 800, benchmarked against a norm group with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100
- APT, the composite for Part 1
- SA, the composite for Part 2
- GPS, the General Performance Score, a full composite derived from all eight subtests
- A percentile rank (PR) corresponding to the GPS, ranging from 1 to 99 and above, with a midpoint of 50
The percentile rank is the number that matters for admission. It tells you the percentage of NMAT examinees whose scores were the same as or lower than yours. A percentile rank of 75 does not mean you answered 75 percent of items correctly. It means three quarters of the cohort scored at or below your level.
There is no "passing score" in the sense of a licensure exam. There is a cut-off that determines whether you count as a bona fide applicant.
The CHED requirement
Under CHED Memorandum Order No. 18, series of 2016, the policies, standards and guidelines for the Doctor of Medicine programme, two rules govern the NMAT:
- The NMAT must be taken not more than two years before admission to medical school.
- The candidate's percentile score must be equal to or higher than the minimum prescribed by the medical school or by the Commission, whichever is higher. The Commission's prescribed minimum is the 40th percentile rank.
Read that second rule carefully, because it is often quoted wrong. The 40th percentile is the floor, not the target. Medical schools are free to require more, and competitive ones do. Each school publishes its own requirement, and it can change between academic years, so verify with the admissions office of the school you are actually applying to rather than relying on a figure from a comparison table.
CEM is explicit that the scores it reports do not by themselves get you in. Schools apply their own additional requirements, including interviews.
If you are still building a shortlist, our roundup of the best medical schools in the Philippines and the breakdown of medical school tuition cover the two questions that usually come next.
Four things the NMAT is not
It is not a licensure exam. This is the most common mix-up. The NMAT gets you into medical school. The physician licensure examination, administered by the Professional Regulation Commission, comes years later, after the degree and internship, and it is what actually lets you practise. Nothing about your NMAT percentile affects that exam.
It is not a general aptitude test you can sit out of curiosity. CEM requires candidates to certify that they are taking the NMAT for the purpose of applying to a Philippine medical school and not for any other reason. It is also confidential: candidates agree not to discuss or disclose test content in any medium, and CEM treats reconstructing items from memory as a prohibited act.
It is not scored like a school exam. There is no percentage and no raw pass mark. The number that matters is a percentile rank, which is a statement about where you sit relative to other examinees in the same norm group, not about how many items you answered correctly.
It is not a one-attempt test. CEM states there is no limit on the number of times an applicant may take the NMAT, and lists candidates who want to improve their scores as an eligible category. What is limited is registration frequency: one test day per testing cycle. That is a meaningfully different rule from the UPCAT, which UP allows only once.
What it costs and when it runs
CEM publishes a total of PHP 1,900.00 for candidates taking the test in the Philippines, made up of a PHP 500.00 registration fee and a PHP 1,400.00 test fee, with payment channel service fees charged on top. NMAT-International applicants pay USD 60.00, made up of a USD 15.00 registration fee and a USD 45.00 test fee, by credit card only.
On timing, CEM states that test administrations are usually scheduled in three windows across the year: October to November, January to February, and April to May. The exact dates and registration windows change every cycle and are announced on the NMAT website, so plan against the pattern and confirm the dates from CEM directly.
CEM's own scheduling advice is worth repeating: consider taking the NMAT in the earliest available cycle, so that you can see whether your score meets your target school's standard while there is still time to retake in a later cycle before you apply.
One thing in flux worth knowing
The 40th percentile cut-off is currently under review.
CHED's Technical Panel for Medical Education held a public consultation on 30 July 2026 on amending the cut-off provision in CMO 18, s. 2016. The argument raised against the fixed cut-off is that it converts the NMAT into a pass-or-fail gate and limits schools' ability to set their own admission criteria, an academic freedom question that echoes the Supreme Court's reasoning when it struck down the mandatory PhiLSAT requirement for law schools.
Nothing here is settled, and we are not going to guess the outcome. What it means practically is simple: check CHED and CEM for the rule in force during your application cycle, rather than assuming the figure you read in an old guide still applies.
What comes after
The NMAT is the first gate, not the last. After it come the medical school's own admission process, four years of medicine, an internship, and then the physician licensure examination administered by the Professional Regulation Commission. Our physician licensure exam guide covers that final step.
If you are ready to sit the NMAT, the practical next step is how to register for the NMAT.
Sources
- Center for Educational Measurement, Inc., NMAT Bulletin of Information (July 2025): https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/nmat/files/downloads/NMAT_BOI_OCBT_0725-R.pdf
- Center for Educational Measurement, Inc., NMAT Frequently Asked Questions (February 2025): https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/nmat/files/downloads/NMAT_FAQs_02122025.pdf
- Center for Educational Measurement, Inc., NMAT Eligibility and Registration Requirements: https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/nmat/eligibility-registration-requirements
- Center for Educational Measurement, Inc., Admission to Philippine Medical Schools: https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/nmat/admission-philippine-medical-schools
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 18, s. 2016 (Doctor of Medicine programme), hosted by CEM: https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/nmat/files/upload/CHED_MO_No__18_Doctor_of_Medicine_Program.pdf
- Center for Educational Measurement, Inc., About CEM: https://www.cem-inc.org.ph/about
- The Manila Times, "Guarding the gates of academic freedom: Why the NMAT cut-off score imperils PH medical education" (3 August 2026): https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/08/03/opinion/columns/guarding-the-gates-of-academic-freedom-why-the-nmat-cut-off-score-imperils-ph-medical-education/2396583
- Graduate Management Admission Council, NMAT by GMAC exam: https://www.mba.com/exams/nmat
