Medical Schools in Italy give you a great amount of flexibility and power over your exams, but as Uncle Ben once said “With great power comes great responsibility”.
What does the exam timetable look like?
Italian medical schools are a little bit unique in the world (especially compared to our more western medical school counterparts) as there are multiple exam sessions throughout the year, generally one in the winter, one during the summer, and one in the fall.
Classically the exam “months” are February, June, July, and September with each subject having two opportunities in each month, as you can see from the example exam calendar from La Sapienzas Medicine in English course that I linked below.
So what date do I need to do the exam?
You have the complete freedom to pick and choose when you want to do your exams, and which exams you want to complete. If you don’t want to do all your exams that year thats fine as well.
- To pass into 2nd year, you only need to pass 2 full exams from 1st year.
- To pass into 3rd year you need to pass all of your 1st year exams, and only 2 from 2nd year.
- To pass into 4th year you need to pass all of 1st, 2nd, and 2 exams from 3rd year.
- I’m sure you get the point.
You can actually continue to attend classes with your classmates even if yo udon’t complete the requirements from the list above, however you will not be able to do any exams of the year you are attending until you finish the previous ones.
UNIVERSITY OF PAVIA IS THE EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE. IF YOU DO NOT FINISH YOUR EXAMS IN THE SAME YEAR YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PROGRESS.
What if I fail an exam?
In most countries failing an exam usually means having to wait for a specific point in the year to have another trial. I know that in Ireland “repeats” for students who have failed are held at the end of the summer, and you usually have to pay a very hefty fee. In other countries failing the same exam twice (not passing at repeats) means that you have to repeat the entire year, and in more extreme countries it means you get kicked out of medical school with no possibility of ever applying again. Thankfully Italy is a little bit more relaxed when it comes to re-sitting exams.
Since there are multiple exam sessions throughout the year you have multiple chances to fail. And well if you fail there’s practically no consequences! You can sit the same exam as many times as you want throughout any point in your medical school degree (however some universities like Turin and Padova only give 3 opportunities a year compared to the 7 in other public medical universities in Italy). Failing an exam is really not that big of a problem which really helps alleviate some of the exam stress and nerves you might be feeling, especially when it comes to oral exams. Here’s where it gets weird though, you can resit an exam if you don’t like your grade.
Wait! I can reject bad grades?
If you had your heart set on getting that perfect 30 lode, and instead got a 29 you can reject your grade! The professor doesn’t record your grade and it’s as if you never sat that exam, giving you multiple chances of that sweet sweet 30 (or 31). While the grading system in Italian medical schools is unique, it’s quite easy to get used to, and you quickly realise that while your grades shouldn’t matter it can pay off to have a high average as a medical student due to Scholarships, or Erasmus opportunities for medical students.
Conclusion
This system is great and awful at the same time. While very forgiving and allowing a great amount of flexibility to plan your schedule around for flights, holidays, etc. it also kind of takes away from the seriousness of exams. It’s very easy to adopt an attitude of “Well I don’t need to study now I can always just sit it next session”. Being perfectly honest I fell into this pit in my first year, and struggled the entire summer trying to catch up with my exams; the amount of responsibility Italian universities put on you is both refreshing and terrifying.
Don’t do what I did kids. Do all of your exams on time.