EmSAT Was Cancelled — What UAE Universities Actually Want in 2026

If you search for UAE university entry requirements today, you will be told — confidently, repeatedly, by tutoring sites and even by some university pages — that you must sit the EmSAT. Specific score thresholds will be quoted at you. 1100 for this, 1250 for that.

Nearly all of it is out of date. EmSAT was cancelled as a university admission requirement in November 2024, and nothing national replaced it. Universities now set their own criteria. If you are planning a UAE university application around an EmSAT score, you are preparing for a test that is no longer the gate.

What actually happened

On 3 November 2024, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research jointly announced that EmSAT would no longer be required for Grade 12 students entering university. It was formalised in Ministerial Resolution No. 19 of 2024, issued that month, which repealed the previous admission-standards resolution.

The resolution hands the decision to institutions:

Higher education institutions shall establish admission standards for their programs… They may refer to the standards attached to this resolution for guidance.

The word guidance is doing a lot of work there. The annexed standards are advisory, not binding — which is precisely why requirements now differ so much between universities.

Does EmSAT still exist at all?

Yes — but as a school assessment, not a university gate. It remains mandatory for students in Grades 4, 6, 8 and 10 at targeted schools, and there is a baseline assessment in Grade 1. What has gone is the Grade 12 university-admission function.

Some universities also still accept an EmSAT score as one option among several. Khalifa University, for instance, states plainly that EmSAT is not mandatory, while adding that valid scores no more than 18 months old will still be considered. So a score is not useless — it is simply no longer the requirement.

The English-proficiency change that matters most

What universities look at instead

The resolution's guidance is subject-focused rather than average-focused, and includes a provision worth knowing: universities are not required to set a minimum overall secondary score. In practice this means your grades in the relevant subjects now matter more than your overall percentage — a meaningful shift for students who are strong in sciences but middling elsewhere.

The indicative subject guidance runs roughly:

Remember these are guidance figures the ministry offers institutions, not the requirements of any particular university. For those, you have to go university by university.

Verified requirements at UAE universities

Khalifa University

The clearest published British-curriculum requirements of any UAE institution:

• Five approved GCSE/IGCSE subjects at grade C or better
• "Arabic and Islamic Studies are not included in the approved subjects" — the same exclusion the Ministry applies for equivalency
• Three AS or A-Level subjects at grade C or better, which must include Maths and one further science, not repeating your IGCSE subjects
• An MOE equivalency certificate
• IELTS 6.0 or TOEFL iBT 79 where English proof is required

Note that Khalifa's medical degree is graduate-entry, so it is not a route directly from A-Levels.

Zayed University and HCT

Both federal institutions now publish straightforward grade-based routes with no EmSAT requirement. Zayed University accepts a minimum of two A-Levels at grade C or higher. HCT accepts a grade C or equivalent at IGCSE, AS or A-Level for its mathematics entry.

UAE University

For those eligible, UAEU medicine asks for eight subjects — five at O-Level and three at AS/A-Level — at minimum grade B throughout, with three sciences at B and any four subjects at grade A. For general programmes the route is grade-based: 80% English or IELTS 5.0, and Engineering maths at 80% or A-Level grade C.

American University of Sharjah and MBRU

AUS publishes a requirement of five IGCSE/GCSE subjects at grade 5 or B, plus either three AS-Levels or two A-Levels at grade B. Notably, for freshman applicants AUS accepts only TOEFL and IELTS for English.

MBRU, for medicine, asks for six IGCSE/GCSE subjects including three sciences with any four at grade A or 7, plus three grade B passes at AS or A-Level in three science subjects. It runs its own entrance exam and multiple mini interviews — and, unlike UK medical schools, does not require UCAT or BMAT.

What this means for your planning

1. Stop revising for EmSAT unless a university has asked you for it
   Check your specific target institutions. Most no longer require it, and no national test replaced it.
2. Treat your subject grades as the real currency
   Sciences and maths for STEM courses especially. Subject grades now carry more weight than your overall average.
3. Check whether you need an English test at all
   If you're in an English-medium British-curriculum school, you may well not. Confirm before booking IELTS.
4. Aim well above the equivalency floor
   MOE equivalency accepts grade E. Khalifa wants C, AUS wants B, MBRU wants A's. The equivalency bar is not the admissions bar.
5. Start your equivalency certificate early
   Unchanged by any of this, and still required. Read the full rules before your final year.

FAQ

The short version: the gate moved. It used to be a national test; now it is your subject grades, read by each university on its own terms. That is better news for a strong IGCSE and A-Level student than it sounds — but only if you're planning against the current rules rather than the ones still sitting at the top of the search results.