IMAT 2025 Timeline Explained: What Went Wrong and What It Means for 2026
IMAT 2025 was not just difficult — it was structurally chaotic. From early rumors of cancellation to registration system failures, overbooked exam centers, contradictory unofficial information, procedural disqualifications, and delayed ranking lists, the 2025 admission cycle exposed serious weaknesses in how the exam is administered and communicated.
This article is not an opinion piece and not a reaction post. It is a documented, chronological reconstruction of everything that actually happened during the IMAT 2025 cycle — from the aftermath of IMAT 2024 to the publication of the final ranking lists in November 2025.
All dates, figures, and events reported below are based on official Ministry announcements, university bandos, verified datasets, and direct institutional communication, with misinformation and speculation deliberately excluded. If you are preparing for IMAT 2026, understanding what happened in 2025 is not optional. It is the baseline for making informed decisions.
Phase 1: The Build-Up Late 2024 – Early 2025
The 2024 Legacy
The IMAT 2024 exam took place on September 17, 2024. Anonymous results were released on September 26, personal results on October 3, and the ranking lists for non-EU applicants and the first EU round were released on October 10, 2024. Because the exam was extremely easy, thresholds rose significantly, shaping many expectations for 2025.
Rumors vs. Reality
In April 2024, rumors began spreading that IMAT might be cancelled or changed, based on earlier discussions about reforms to Italian-taught medical programs. None of this was true. The first official statement about the new system was published on the 5th of November 2024, followed later by more information about the filter semester, confirming that the IMAT exam would remain.
University Updates
January 2025 started with major updates from universities. Padua announced that their Medicine and Surgery program would be hosted at the Santi Giovanni e Paolo Hospital in Venice. Around the same time, Bologna announced it would launch the first veterinary medicine course in English in Italy, and later confirmed that entry would be through the IMAT exam.
Phase 2: The Bureaucracy April – August 2025
Pre-Enrollment & Dates
- April 3 On the 3rd of April, the pre-enrollment portal opened for non-EU applicants, allowing them to select their university and field of study.
- May 15 A month later, on May 15th, the Ministry announced that the official IMAT 2025 date would be September 17, 2025. Afterward, universities started publishing their own deadlines and procedures. Some kept it simple, others added extra steps, and a few even extended their pre-enrollment deadlines.
The Schedule Drop
August was the month when everything intensified. On the 8th of August, the Ministry published the full IMAT schedule. Registration would run from the 26th of August to the 9th of September. The exam would be on the 17th of September, the anonymous results would come out on the 25th of September, the personal results on the 6th of October, and the ranking lists on the 13th of October. On the same day, the available seats for EU and non-EU applicants were also published. Immediately after this, universities started releasing their bandos, explaining the steps, documents, and requirements for their programs.
Phase 3: The Crisis Aug 26 – Sept 9
The Crash
The actual chaos started on August 26th, when IMAT registration opened at 11:39 AM Italian time. The website collapsed within the first five minutes because of overwhelming traffic, preventing students from registering. It became accessible again around 5 PM, but then crashed multiple times, forcing students to attempt registration dozens of times before succeeding.
Center Saturation
The problem persisted at exam centers. On August 26, Indian centers were fully booked by 5:20 AM, followed immediately by Turkish centers filling up as well. No new seats were added for several years, forcing many students to miss their chance to take the exam at these locations. The situation worsened on August 27, around 7–8 PM, when some students registered for Indian and Turkish centers received emails stating their bookings were over capacity and were canceled due to system errors. They were advised to choose different centers.
Deadlock
Efforts to secure additional seats at saturated centers stalled. While initial contact with relevant offices suggested a potential resolution—similar to the intervention in 2021—the administrative channels were subsequently flooded with uncoordinated mass emails. This volume of correspondence effectively deadlocked the process. On the 28th of August, the confirmation became final: no centers would receive additional spaces. Other centers began filling shortly after—Dubai on the 28th, and soon Canada, Poland, Brazil, and several others.
The Final Number
Registration finally ended on the 9th of September, with more than 13,800 registered applicants—one of the highest numbers IMAT has ever seen. Between the 14th and the 16th of September, students began receiving information about their exam centers. Italian centers published details on their own websites, while international centers sent emails directly to students.
Phase 4: The Exam & Data Sept 17 – Oct 6
Exam Day
Sept 17On September 17th, IMAT 2025 was conducted as scheduled. The exam paper was released at 5 PM, followed by our exam analysis four hours later. Two days later, on September 19th, we flagged Question 52 because the answer options contained incorrect units, and the point was awarded to all students.
View Paper AnalysisPredictions vs Data
Right after the exam, small unofficial groups began sharing Google Forms to “predict the thresholds.” We repeatedly stressed that such predictions were not possible, especially since the anonymous dataset contains both EU and non-EU students. However, many groups persisted in sharing unlikely figures for the views.
Anonymous Results
On the 25th of September, the anonymous results were published. As happens almost every year, students reported several common mistakes. We analyzed the dataset and found that 13,495 students actually took the exam, confirming the largest IMAT cohort ever recorded. After that, more groups attempted to predict thresholds, despite the lack of usable data.
Access Full Score DatasetProcedural Disqualifications
Personal results were published on October 6th at 8 PM. This year, there was a notable rise in disqualifications caused by procedural errors such as incorrect information on papers, errors in filling out sheets, and misplacing papers in wrong boxes. Some students later regained their results after submitting clarification requests, but others remained disqualified, with universities like Milan reaffirming their decisions.
Phase 5: The Results Oct 13 – Nov 2025
The Universitaly Confusion
Once more, unofficial groups are spreading misinformation by interpreting automatic Universitaly messages as acceptance letters before October 13th. We contacted Pavia University and clarified this publicly to prevent further confusion.Unfortunately, similar situations occurred repeatedly throughout the same year, with different issues being amplified by certain groups in ways that created misleading pathways driven by visibility rather than accuracy. At Locomotive, our approach has consistently been to share only updated information grounded in verified sources.
Final Rankings
Ranking lists began appearing on October 13, though several universities released theirs later. Some were released on the 14th, Parma and Turin on the 16th, and the last list, Siena, appeared on November 3. A few universities—including Tor Vergata, Bologna, and Bari—had to revise their lists because EU and non-EU candidates were mixed. Meanwhile, universities such as Messina, Luigi Vanvitelli, and Pavia opened additional rounds for non-EU applicants after some admitted students failed to complete enrollment procedures.
View Official IMAT 2025 ResultsThe Lesson for 2026
IMAT 2025 made one reality unmistakably clear: students who relied on unofficial channels, speculative predictions, and unverified interpretations paid a real price — lost seats, disqualifications, and missed opportunities.
This cycle was not chaotic because information was unavailable. It was chaotic because too much incorrect information was trusted. Verified information is no longer optional.