IDAT score requirements – what's considered a strong result for postgraduate admissions?
I'm taking the IDAT in about 3 weeks as part of my application to a postgraduate program abroad and I'm trying to understand how universities actually use the scores. My prep has been about 2 hours a day for the past month and my mock test scores are sitting around 62-68% overall, but I have no idea if that's strong, average, or borderline for admissions purposes.
The quantitative reasoning section is my weakest area – I'm probably 10-12 percentage points below my verbal scores there. I come from a humanities background so that gap makes sense, but I'm worried it'll drag my composite down enough to hurt the application. Does anyone know if programs look at section scores separately or primarily at the composite?
I've also seen conflicting information about how long scores are valid – some sources say 2 years, others say 5. If anyone has recent experience with this and knows how admissions offices actually interpret the score report, I'd really appreciate it. My target program hasn't published a minimum score, which is somehow more stressful than having a clear benchmark.
From my experience applying to two European programs, they looked at the composite but flagged the quantitative section specifically during the interview when it was notably lower than verbal. A 15-point gap got mentioned. Anything under 10 points difference seems to pass without comment.
For the quantitative section, timed practice is everything. I boosted my quant score by 9 points in 3 weeks just by drilling under time pressure – the content wasn't the issue, the pacing was. Try sets of 10 questions in 12 minutes and compress from there.
I scored 71% composite and got into my first-choice program. The admissions coordinator told me informally that 65%+ is where serious consideration starts for their intake. I'd treat anything above 70% as comfortable and above 75% as strong.
Score validity is 2 years for most institutions I applied to, though a couple accepted 3-year-old scores with an explanation letter. Check directly with each program's admissions office – there's real variation and you don't want to assume.
Quick update since I'm in the same boat. I sit the real exam in about two and a half weeks and my mocks have crept up to roughly 70% over the last few sessions, so somewhere close to where you are. What actually moved the needle for me wasn't more hours, it was being honest about which sections I kept fumbling. I was averaging fine overall but bleeding marks on the same question types every single time, and I didn't even notice until I started tracking it.
If you've got 3 weeks I'd stop chasing the overall percentage and just grind the weak topics. I've been running through these free idat administration and logistics sets on repeat and that one area went from my worst to one of my steadiest. On the score question, from what I've gathered most programs care more about a solid balanced result than one big number, so a consistent high 60s to low 70s usually reads as a strong, safe result rather than borderline. You're closer than you think.