College Entrance Score Target for a Course

Score targets by university course

What counts as a cutoff score (nota de corte) changes depending on how you get in. Under SISU, which runs on ENEM, you'll usually be aiming at Medicine at USP/UFRJ around 780-810, Engineering at top federals 720-760, Law and Business 700-740, and Computer Science at UFMG/UFRGS 720-750. Older vestibulares such as FUVEST work differently. Their first phase has 90 multiple-choice questions, and you'll need somewhere around 60-90 points to get through, with the exact bar set by the course. Medicine sits at the top. Example: if Medicine at FUVEST is the goal, plan for 80+ in phase 1 and try not to leave any phase 2 discipline weak. Bear in mind these numbers move every year as the applicant pool and the number of seats change.

Applications

It helps when you're picking a course on SISU, which opens twice a year and reads your most recent ENEM score. It also covers ProUni scholarship eligibility, where you need at least 1,500 total points in ENEM and can't zero the essay. And it's useful for study planning, since you can hold yourself against the historical cutoffs that INEP, FUVEST, and UFRJ publish. Compare your simulado scores to the target and you'll know which area to fix first before the exam window opens.

FAQ

Are cutoffs the same every year? No. They swing with how many people apply, how hard the exam was, and whether seats were added or cut. A safe baseline is the average of the last 3 years.

What is the ProUni minimum? You need 450 points in each ENEM area, an essay above zero, and a total of at least 1,500. That's a separate rule from the SISU cutoffs.

Do affirmative action quotas have different cutoffs? Yes. Quota cutoffs (cotas raciais, escola pública, baixa renda) tend to land 30-80 points below open competition.

Should I target the average or top of the range? Go for the top. Cutoffs creep up in popular years, and that extra margin saves you on a bad essay day.