Italy Abolishes the Medicine Entrance Exam: How the New Admission System Works

The End of the Single-Day Entrance Test

Italy ran a centralized numerus clausus entrance test for years to control admission to Medicine and Surgery, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine, where a single exam day decided whether an applicant got a place. Italy's Ministry of University and Research (MUR) moved away from this model, replacing the single test with an open-access first semester for these degree courses.

The old test drew criticism for years. A single multiple-choice exam, taken on one day at one location, decided years of a student's future, and repeated legal challenges over question quality and fairness added pressure on the ministry to rethink the model. The semester-based approach spreads assessment across weeks of coursework instead of one sitting.

How the Open Semester Works

Under the new model, any applicant who meets the general enrollment requirements registers for the first semester of a medicine, dentistry or veterinary course without sitting a separate entrance exam beforehand. All enrolled students follow a common set of introductory courses, typically covering subjects like biology, chemistry, physics and logical reasoning, and sit standardized exams at the end of the semester alongside every other student on the course.

A national ranking based on these exam results then decides which students continue in the course for the places set by the ministry at that university. This moves the selection point from before enrollment to after a semester of coursework, so applicants show what they know rather than perform on a single exam day.

What Happens if You Do Not Rank High Enough

Students who complete the first semester but do not rank inside the available places do not lose that semester's work. Credits earned during the common courses transfer into a related science degree, such as biotechnology or a biomedical science course, so students continue their studies rather than restart from scratch.

What It Means for EU Applicants

EU students applying to Italian medicine, dentistry or veterinary courses go through the same open first semester as Italian applicants, since Italian public universities apply the same admission rules across EU nationalities. This removes the pressure of a single exam day taken in a country where many EU applicants are not fluent test-takers in Italian, replacing it with a semester of coursework and exams instead.

Course language still matters. Most of these programs run in Italian, so EU applicants need a solid level of Italian to follow lectures and exams from day one, even though the entrance mechanism changed.

Applying Under the New System

Check application windows and enrollment requirements directly with the university you want to attend, since procedures for registering for the open semester run through each institution rather than a single national exam date. Confirm language requirements and required documents for EU applicants well before the semester starts, since these details vary between universities, and ask specifically how many places the course offers for the year you apply.

Preparing for the First Semester

Since the semester now doubles as the selection stage, treat it like the entrance test it replaced. Review biology, chemistry, physics and logical reasoning before term starts, since these subjects carry the most weight in the standardized exams that decide the ranking. Universities publish past exam material and course outlines for the common first-semester subjects, and reviewing these gives a clearer sense of pace than a general medicine entrance exam guide would.