.........Austrilian and Irish Med Schools dont count your freshman year when determining your GPA.

Of the 4-yr programs in Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, Flinders, and ANU (Aust. National University) count only the non-freshman years, or non-1st-year *levels*, when determining gpa. The latter method is used if your school designates courses by year-level (e.g., a US school that designates Phys 101 = freshman course, Chem 201 = sophomore course, Neuro 301 as junior course, etc. -- read your transcript key to see). If it does not so designate the courses, and/or if you were "non-traditional" in that you took more than ~128 credits (US system) total as an undergrad, and you point this out to the admissions committees, then the schools will consider using an alternative method to determine course "level", for example, by simply removing all courses taken the first year, splitting the coursework evenly into three groups based on when they were taken, using two groups instead of three (if your school only designates intro vs. advanced courses, ANU will designate advanced courses as 3rd-year and intro courses as 2nd-year, with no courses designated as 1st-year), etc.

The above 4 schools will then weigh your coursework increasingly with each year, typically with formula: (1*2nd-year + 2*3rd-year + 3*4th-year)/6.

Queensland calculates gpa using *all* coursework, using similar weighting. For those of you who have low 1st-year grades, be consoled that UQ has a lower gpa cutoff.

For current practices, try:
http://www.acer.edu.au/unitest/gradentrymedd/gradMed/gmac_intro.html
..for a copy of the aussie med school admissions guide.

-Pitman

Thanks for your reply pitman, just the info that I was looking for.

Do you have any idea how competetive Aussie schools(USy,UQ,Flinders) are in
terms of GPA and MCAT scores for Americans.

-thanks

All I know is from the schools' websites and ACER's GMAC guide. The following numbers were accrued some months ago, and may be slightly out of date; further, the cutoffs should be expected to "migrate" to a minor extent, probably upward, depending on how the applicant pool has changed since last year. Note that I incorrectly reported above that UQ also weighs coursework by "level" (it does not).

Flinders:
gpa: no cutoff for interview (used later, see below); weighted by course "level" such that wgpa=(1*2nd-year+2*3rd-year+3*4th-year)/6. 1st-year "level" courses aren't used.
mcat: 8/8/8 M minimum -or- gamsat: 63 (~75-80%ile), w/ 50 min. on each section.
mcat/gamsat -> interview.
Ultimate decision based on 1/3 wgpa, 1/3 mcat, 1/3 interview.

UQ:
gpa: 4.5/7.0 cutoff (2.25/4.00) (not used beyond cutoff); all undergrad courses, weighted equally.
mcat: 8/8/8/M minimum; gamsat: 63, w/ 50min. each section.
cutoff -> interview -> decision based on 50% mcat, 50% interview.

USyd:
gpa: 5.5/7 (3.14/4.00?) cutoff; weighted by course "level", as above; slightly under ok if mcat good.
mcat: 24M minimum; gamsat: 57 (~50%ile)
cutoff (wgpa and mcat section* scores) -> interview -> (tie-breakers) mcat section scores.

* an unknown here is how the section scores are compared. For example, would a 10/10/10 P be considered better or worse than an 8/11/11 P? If scores are lines up and examined where highest-highest scores show difference, then the latter would be preferred, while if lowest-lowest comparison made, the former would be preferred.

Otherwise, from the above you should be able to get a pretty good idea of whether you'll interview. For all schools, up to twice as many interviews are given than offers (ranges from 1.5-2x). Given an interview, your performance in it will pretty much determine your shot at USyd, will count along with mcat at UQ, and will be just 1/3 the factor at Flinders. However, the various numbers/cutoffs cannot be assumed fixed, as there's no way, for example, a school can know that a 24M cutoff will yield just the desired number of interviews. but it's interesting that those three schools have maneuvered to get the best candidates using 3 different criteria (pre-interview criteria being mcat, mcat+gpa, or mcat+wgpa; post-interview criteria being interview, exam + interview, or exam + wgpa + interview). Helps candidates choose schools, and helps schools avoid *some* of the direct competition for students -- you don't find this level of diversity in selection process in US, and there's far fewer "subjective" elements (even the interviews+their assessment are highly structured).

To me, this is appealing -- no fear that my extra long undergrad career, full of experimentation, part-time years (yet excessive credits), and other non-grade-related transcript anomalies will ruin my prospects. On the other hand, my extracurricular + clinical experiences "only" count in the interview. Add the absence of recommendations, and you really stand on your own, having to prove yourself via your best permutation of the numbers, and by playing up your personality/past in the interview, with no real nepotism factor. I'd say, well fit for schools where the students must be more self-motivated to learn (i.e., PBL) than in a didactic system.

-Pitman