Can I take admissions tests without UCAS application or as a challenge?

You can take an admissions test in the years before submitting your UCAS application or as a challenge but there are a few things to check beforehand.

Check if you can receive/share the test result

For candidates applying to university in the same admissions cycle as the test, we issue the result to the relevant university/course on their behalf.

If you take an admissions test before applying to university or as a challenge, you will be responsible for providing the result to any institutions later on, as we will be unable to do this on your behalf. 

Not all admissions tests have results released to candidates. Results are released for BMAT, STEP, and TMUA only.

Please note, for NSAA, ENGAA, TSA, and TSA Section 1 results will only be issued to candidates if the university they have applied to requires them to take the test. Candidates will not receive a result if they are not applying to a university that requires the test. 

Check if your intended universities would accept a result from a past year

Most candidates who take the tests are university applicants for that year's admissions cycle. Generally, we would not encourage you to take the test in the years before it is needed without checking with your intended university choices. 

This is because the universities may not take a previous year's result into consideration - this is at their discretion.