No - your high school GPA and transcript don't factor into the IMAT ranking at all. The exam places you using your score alone, out of 90, so two candidates with very different academic records land in the same spot if they score the same.

Every admissions cycle, some version of the same question shows up: does a weak high school GPA hurt my IMAT application? Does a strong one give me an edge? The honest answer surprises a lot of candidates, mostly because it runs against how competitive university admissions tend to work almost everywhere else.

What the IMAT actually scores

The IMAT places you using one number: your score on exam day, out of 90. The national ranking that decides which university you get is built entirely from that score. Your high school transcript, your GPA, your class rank, none of it enters that calculation. Two candidates with wildly different academic records who land on the same IMAT score end up in exactly the same position on the ranking, with exactly the same shot at the same universities.

Where grades still come into the picture

That doesn't mean your transcript is irrelevant to the process everywhere. Getting your diploma recognized as valid for Italian university entry is a separate administrative step, handled differently depending on whether you're applying through the EU track or need pre-enrolment through a consulate. That step checks whether your diploma qualifies you to apply at all, not how competitive your grades were. It's a pass or fail eligibility question, not a scoring input, and it's worth sorting out early rather than assuming it works the same way as the exam itself.

Why the GPA habit is hard to shake

If you went through a school system where GPA, class rank, or a standardized test fed directly into university admissions decisions, it's a reasonable instinct to assume the IMAT layers on top of that. It doesn't. The exam was deliberately built as the single gate, so that a candidate from a school with brutal grading and one from a school with heavy grade inflation compete on exactly the same footing on exam day, with nothing from their transcript following them in.

What to actually do with this

Stop treating your transcript as a lever you can pull. The hours you'd spend worrying about a B+ from two years ago, or trying to retroactively pad your academic record, are hours better spent on biology, chemistry, and logical reasoning, the things the exam actually measures. Confirm your diploma's eligibility status early so it's handled and out of the way, then put the rest of your energy entirely into the exam itself.

Not sure how to split your limited prep time across sections when the exam is the only thing that counts? Building a study plan around what the IMAT actually rewards, instead of what your old transcript says, is exactly the kind of strategy work 1:1 mentorship helps you get right.

Apply for the mentorship

Your GPA got you through secondary school. From here, the exam is the only transcript that counts.