15,158 people registered for the medical entrance exam on Friday (July 5), less than last year. There are a total of 1,900 study places at the medical universities of Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz and the medical faculty at the University of Linz. This is 50 more than last year. For the first time, the so-called “dedication” could be for public interest, up to 85 seats in total.
The number of entries was recorded in 2021: at that time, around 17,800 people applied for a place at the university. The following year it was 15,800 and the year before that it was 15,400. Experience shows that about 80 percent of registrants actually pass the eight-hour written test.
A decline in applications was recorded in Vienna and Linz – almost 7,400 people (2023: 7,500) registered for the entrance exam this year in the federal capital, and around 2,000 (2023: 2,100) in the Upper Austrian state capital. In Innsbruck (3,200) and Graz (2,600) the numbers remained practically unchanged. On the contrary, the number of study places has increased by 50 over the previous year due to the expansion plan. Vienna (2023: 760), Innsbruck 420 (2023: 410), Graz 388 (2023: 370) and Linz 320 (2023: 310) have a total of 772 places. Further expansion will take place in two-year increments by 2028 to a total of 2,000 seats.
Ten applicants per place to study in Vienna
This year, purely mathematically, there are about ten applicants for a study place in Vienna, about eight in Innsbruck, seven in Graz and about six in Linz. However, at least 95 percent of places in human medicine are reserved for EU citizens, and 75 percent are reserved for applicants with an Austrian high school diploma. However, dentistry has no such provision.
The entrance exam primarily asks about knowledge from medically relevant subjects (especially biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics) and cognitive skills (including memory capacity, recognition of influences). Ten percent of the test result depends on the text comprehension portion of the test, and another ten percent depends on the emotion recognition and social decision making portions. Mathura is not a pre-requisite for taking the exam – Mathura certificate should be issued only as part of the admission process.
For the first time, plenty of dedicated study spaces
This year, 85 places out of 1,900 study places have been allocated in the public interest of the federal states, the Austrian Health Insurance Fund, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence. Anyone wishing to apply for this must participate in a regular registration process and perform a specified service for a specified period of time in the respective institution, for example a statutory health insurance, hospital, military or official physician.
A low score in the exam is sufficient for this. Applicants are not required to rank among the top candidates of their respective university, but must “only” achieve a performance of 75 percent of all applicant results (and be among the top candidates within their respective quota of dedicated study places). This system already existed – but only the Federal Army (with ten locations) used it. Now significantly more companies are using it.
