Australian Accepted/Rejected/Waitlisted

I'm from: Taiwan
My country of citizenship is: The United States/Taiwan
Currently studying: Biochemistry (Bachelor of Science, already graduated)
At this University: National Taiwan University
My GPA is: 3.3~3.4/4.0
My MCAT Scores were: PS:11 VS:09 BS:10 WS:Q

I applied to: University of Queensland, Flinders University, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Sydney/Monash via ACER

I am attending: Flinders, definitely
I was accepted at: UQ and Flinders
I was waitlisted at: none so far
I withdrew from: University of Melbourne (did not meet pre-requisite subjects.)

My first choice school is: Flinders University

I have applied to medical schools this many times: 1

rayjay said:

thanks guys.

Just curious if the GPAs you guys posted were your wGPA or cGPA? I know it's tough to calculate it because we don't know the method Aussie schools use but maybe an estimate?
using the 4th x 3, 3rd x 2 and 2nd x 1 rule for Melb, UQ and Flinders and the three year weighted GPA for Sydney, etc.

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They were wGPA calculated for me by Dr. Tony Edwards from Flinders.

I'm from: Seattle, WA, USA
My country of citizenship is: The United States
Currently studying: Cell Biology
At this University: Univesrity of Washington
My GPA is: ~3.2/4.0
My MCAT Scores were: PS:10 VS:10 BS:11 WS:O

I applied to: University of Queensland-Ochsner and the University of Sydney via ACER

I am attending: undecided
I was accepted at: UQ-Ochsner and U Syd
I was waitlisted at:
I was rejected from:

My first choice school is: What gives me the best chance to land a residency(anywhere).

I have applied to medical schools this many times: 1

Other: Been reading about the influx of internationals to OZ and also the difficulty for IMG's to get a residency. My ultimate goal is to become a physician, preferably in my home country. However, if my future is to serve in OZ, I have no objection as long as I get to do what I want to do. Would love to get some opinions about the two programs. Best of luck to everyone and hopefully will be seeing some of you on campus this Jan/Feb!

I'm from: Toronto, Canada
My country of citizenship is: Canada
Currently studying: M.Sc. - Physiology
At this University: The University of Toronto
My GPA is: ~3.4/4.0 (Undergrad)
My GPA is: ~3.8/4.0 (Graduate School)
My MCAT Scores were: PS:12 VS:10 BS:11 WS:Q

I applied to: Ireland (Limerick, Trinity, UC -Dublin, RCSI), Jaigellonian University (Poland), USyd, UQ, UMel.

I am attending: USyd.
I was accepted at: UQ, USyd, Jaigellonian, Limerick, Trinity.
I was waitlisted at: None.
I was rejected from: None.
Waiting to hear from: UMel (but will reject interview invitation - if I get one - because I already accepted USyd).

Note: Once I rejected one Irish school, because I wasn't going to be finished my M.Sc. in time, I was withdrawn from the program (Atlantic Bridge), thus I didn't hear back from RCSI and UC-Dublin.

My first choice school is: Sydney.

I have applied to medical schools this many times: 2 (Once straight out of undergrad).

NazTNaz said:

I'm from: Toronto, Canada
My country of citizenship is: Canada
Currently studying: M.Sc. - Physiology
At this University: The University of Toronto
My GPA is: ~3.4/4.0 (Undergrad)
My GPA is: ~3.8/4.0 (Graduate School)
My MCAT Scores were: PS:12 VS:10 BS:11 WS:Q

I applied to: Ireland (Limerick, Trinity, UC -Dublin, RCSI), Jaigellonian University (Poland), USyd, UQ, UMel.

I am attending: USyd.
I was accepted at: UQ, USyd, Jaigellonian, Limerick, Trinity.
I was waitlisted at: None.
I was rejected from: None.
Waiting to hear from: UMel (but will reject interview invitation - if I get one - because I already accepted USyd).

Note: Once I rejected one Irish school, because I wasn't going to be finished my M.Sc. in time, I was withdrawn from the program (Atlantic Bridge), thus I didn't hear back from RCSI and UC-Dublin.

My first choice school is: Sydney.

I have applied to medical schools this many times: 2 (Once straight out of undergrad).

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Why didn't you apply to US schools as well?

keepontrying said:

Why didn't you apply to US schools as well?

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I applied to a couple of universities in the states straight out of undergrad, but at the time I didn't know that some schools see Canadians as international students and some schools consider us out-of-state domestic. Unfortunately the ones to which I applied at the time were the former, and they only interviewed between 1-3 international students (didn't include me) per year and only took 1, if any... The reason I didn't apply this round is that I will not be done my M.Sc. in time to start school in September. I will be finishing up my graduate degree in about October-November which makes the Australian academic school year a perfect fit for my current timeline. Also, I am not 100% set on returning to N. America (post medical school), and Australia is honestly a place where I wouldn't mind ending up...

I'm from: Calgary, Canada
My country of citizenship is: Canada
Undergrad: BSc Engineering 09
At this University: Queen's
cGPA: ~3.0
My MCAT Score was: 31Q
Other: I had a strong GPA for my last two years but had a very poor first year which is why I don't have much hope for Canadian schools since they don't give you too much room to recover. To be honest though, I'm prepared for the difficulties of being an IMG returning to Canada (if that's what I even decide to do) because having the opportunity to study medicine at a great school on the either side of the globe is amazing.

I applied to: USyd, Wollongong

I am attending: USyd
I was accepted at: USyd
I was rejected from: Wollongong (Probably because I flat out told them I don't want to do rural medicine which is the basis of their program.)

My first choice school is: USyd

I have applied to medical schools this many times:1

NazTNaz said:

I applied to a couple of universities in the states straight out of undergrad, but at the time I didn't know that some schools see Canadians as international students and some schools consider us out-of-state domestic. Unfortunately the ones to which I applied at the time were the former, and they only interviewed between 1-3 international students (didn't include me) per year and only took 1, if any... The reason I didn't apply this round is that I will not be done my M.Sc. in time to start school in September. I will be finishing up my graduate degree in about October-November which makes the Australian academic school year a perfect fit for my current timeline. Also, I am not 100% set on returning to N. America (post medical school), and Australia is honestly a place where I wouldn't mind ending up...

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Oh I see. I just think that you'll have a decent shot at the lower to mid-tier schools in US, so it'll be a waste of opportunity if you didn't give yourself another chance to stay in North America. Australia is great, but the internship situation is getting uglier as time goes by. I have friends studying at USyd Med right now and they are really not that happy with the PBL teaching because their tutors are pretty apathetic and the whole learning process becomes independent studying. Likewise in hospital, they are not really learning much other than watching alot of surgeries, which is important too I suppose. In Anatomy labs, they only get to examine preserved body parts so it's not exactly dissection per se, unless you attend a summer anatomy course with cadaver after 2nd year, which is pretty competitive to get into. Not sure if the folks on this board know, but the med graduate tsunami striked already in Tasmania, as 30ish graduates cannot get an internship spot within state and have to pursue ones elsewhere. I can't imagine what NSW will look like in 4 years.

I got accepted to USyd as well, which is why I gathered as much info as I can from my friends there, and quite frankly, I'm not too optimistic about the current/future situation. I hope Flinders will accept me, as South Australia isn't too affected by the tsunami. Good luck!

keepontrying said:

Not sure if the folks on this board know, but the med graduate tsunami striked already in Tasmania, as 30ish graduates cannot get an internship spot within state and have to pursue ones elsewhere.

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I heard those reports, too, and read an article about it which didn't have enough detail to explain to me whether this was indeed part of the tsunami, or just the status quo.

Tasmania doesn't have any new med schools, for example, and when I was at a conference in 2006 I was told that a bucketload (I forget the percentage, but on the order of a third as I seem to remember) of the grads go out of state, chiefly to SA. So were the ~30 who didn't stay in TAS for internship above and beyond all those who normally leave the state, or merely the difference between total grads and TAS spots? The former would imply a MASSIVE sudden shortage of spots (since I think the class size is only around 110) which I'd be skeptical of. It's Redshift's alma, so he would know better.

As a Tassie grad I can tell you that very few local students actually stick around for internship in Tassie. In fact last year both Burnie and Launceston had extra positions. Burnie even tried to offer some international students first round offers. In the end Burnie filled them using OTDs/IMGs. The only place in Tassie that's reasonably competitive is Hobart, with just over 30 internship spots.

I thought the media reports (not you, keepontrying) looked fishy. Moral of the story...be careful of which sources to trust!

Just thought I'd add to the Tassie discussion. There's about 110 grads this year (similar if not less to last year); of those about 34 didn't get a first-round offer in Tasmania. There are about 65 intern positions in the state. However, as redshift pointed out, a lot of those who did get an offer are only using it as a back-up until interstate second and third round offers come out. Most people have gotten offers in the later rounds (SA/WA/QLD especially) that they will be accepting over Tassie. Burnie will still probably struggle to fill.

The issue is that Tassie has always been a net exporter of grads, since the mainland states have an excess of spots. Once those fill up with their local grads, there won't be enough positions here for all the locals. There's no real way the Tassie system can support over 100 interns. It may be a bit premature at this stage to worry about people not getting jobs, but it will happen in the future. Having the premier making ill-informed promises doesn't help either.

As for the other states, I have no real idea, but it still seems fairly easy for interstate domestic grads at the moment. Most of us have gotten at least a few offers. It's a bit of a different story for internationals, but I think most of them have local offers.