2019-2020 Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Application

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haha555 said:
Hi! Just curious, for you guys who did the interview on 21/3 and 27/3 respectively, were you initially invited to attend the Applicant Day in Singapore or the US?
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Hey I'm Singaporean and I only heard from admissions in mid-march for an interview invitation, for the 27/3
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Hi! Does one undergraduate GPA matters when applying for Duke-NUS? How can one improve his application if he has a low uni GPA?
 
chocvancake said:
Hey I'm Singaporean and I only heard from admissions in mid-march for an interview invitation, for the 27/3
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I see. Did you submit your application before the Jan 31st deadline? Because I was told by Duke-NUS staff that we only had one online interview for applicants going to SG and US respectively, which were on Mar 16th and 21st
 
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haha555 said:
I see. Did you submit your application before the Jan 31st deadline? Because I was told by Duke-NUS staff that we only had one online interview for applicants going to SG and US respectively, which were on Mar 16th and 21st
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I did submit it before 31 Jan, I think they added another applicant day last minute. If you look up earlier in this thread I think someone mentioned that the school was considering adding another applicant day in late March.
 
Hi everyone! I am applying for MD program next year and was wondering if you guys could offer some advice.

My stats:
GPA: 2.85/5 (NUS Biomedical Sci)
MCAT: 511
Shadowing: 2 weeks at NUH
Volunteer: extensive, in areas like red cross, MINDS, palliative ward etc
Work experience: 2 years in public hospital, 1 year in private hospital (admin/operations job scope)
Recommendation letters: a few from hospital senior management, a few from uni prof
Research: none except my undergraduate FYP, which was a literature review.

I guess my weakest links are my poor undergrad GPA and lack of research experience? Does anyone know if Duke NUS takes an average of GPA and MCAT or or do they place more emphasis on one of them?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Stay safe 🙂
 
purplebraces said:
Hi! Does one undergraduate GPA matters when applying for Duke-NUS? How can one improve his application if he has a low uni GPA?
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Hello! GPA is one of the factors considered by Duke-NUS. However, there are also other factors considered by the school e.g. MCAT/GAMSAT score, leadership roles, volunteer roles, relevant work experience in healthcare, research experience, personal statement and referral letters. 🙂 Academics-wise, having a good MCAT/ GAMSAT score may be able to offset a lower than average GPA. Currently, Duke-NUS states its average GPA and average MCAT score for the 2019 entering class to be:

Average GPA: 3.62
Average MCAT: 513

Nonetheless, this is definitely not fully representative as statistics ultimately deviate with each applicant cycle/ pool. Regardless, all the best. 🙂
 
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Goforit2891988 said:
Hi everyone! I am applying for MD program next year and was wondering if you guys could offer some advice.

My stats:
GPA: 2.85/5 (NUS Biomedical Sci)
MCAT: 511
Shadowing: 2 weeks at NUH
Volunteer: extensive, in areas like red cross, MINDS, palliative ward etc
Work experience: 2 years in public hospital, 1 year in private hospital (admin/operations job scope)
Recommendation letters: a few from hospital senior management, a few from uni prof
Research: none except my undergraduate FYP, which was a literature review.

I guess my weakest links are my poor undergrad GPA and lack of research experience? Does anyone know if Duke NUS takes an average of GPA and MCAT or or do they place more emphasis on one of them?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Stay safe 🙂
Click to expand...
Hello! Per my understanding, Duke-NUS has not shared about how much they take into consideration the GPA relative to MCAT/GAMSAT. (I may be wrong though) My advice would probably be to work on the MCAT to offset a lower GPA to make up for concerns the school may have, academics-wise. For your reference, these are the average GPA and average MCAT scores for the 2019 entering class:

Average GPA: 3.62
Average MCAT: 513

Shadowing and volunteering experiences definitely are important and do help nonetheless. All the best 🙂
 
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Does anyone know how likely Duke NUS would provide financial aid?

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😉Although I am not at liberty to disclose anything about the financial package, I have some information on the delay. The dean during the applicant day said that our applications need to be reviewed by both Duke-NUS and Duke med school. Therefore, the review process takes a longer time than other schools. In addition, your financial background does not affect your admissions. So, your financial information would not delay the paperwork.
 
onwardsandupwards said:
Hello! Per my understanding, Duke-NUS has not shared about how much they take into consideration the GPA relative to MCAT/GAMSAT. (I may be wrong though) My advice would probably be to work on the MCAT to offset a lower GPA to make up for concerns the school may have, academics-wise. For your reference, these are the average GPA and average MCAT scores for the 2019 entering class:

Average GPA: 3.62
Average MCAT: 513

Shadowing and volunteering experiences definitely are important and do help nonetheless. All the best 🙂
Click to expand...
Thanks much! I saw the GPA of their 2019 class profile but was wondering if it's out of 5 or out of 4?
 
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just curious for those who attended interview on Mar 21 and 27, did you also attend the financial aid talk on Mar 19?
 
watermelon.hammock said:
are there any international applicants still waiting? do you guys know what the changes of processes in terms of timeline would imply for us?

COVID-19 FAQs for New and Current Duke-NUS Students

Get updates on how COVID-19 affects your application process and transition to Duke-NUS.
www.duke-nus.edu.sg www.duke-nus.edu.sg
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I'm an international applicant, did my online interview on March 16 and still waiting to hear back. I'm not sure how the timeline changes affect us but what i am wondering is if the few people from March interview that already got accepted were all Singaporeans/PRs? And whether the international applications in general have a longer processing time?
 
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hopefulfor2020 said:
I'm an international applicant, did my online interview on March 16 and still waiting to hear back. I'm not sure how the timeline changes affect us but what i am wondering is if the few people from March interview that already got accepted were all Singaporeans/PRs? And whether the international applications in general have a longer processing time?
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based on the updated timeline though, international students would have to submit application for the immigration letters basically by end of may. if that's the case i hope we will get an outcome by then..
 
watermelon.hammock said:
based on the updated timeline though, international students would have to submit application for the immigration letters basically by end of may. if that's the case i hope we will get an outcome by then..
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Are you guys applying for MD or MD/PhD? Is it possible that those applying for MD/PhD will take longer time?
 
haha555 said:
Are you guys applying for MD or MD/PhD? Is it possible that those applying for MD/PhD will take longer time?
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Just MD. I think the in a MD-PhD application, the MD and PhD sections are handled by different committees that's why the results for the two come out at different times, so it should not affect overall time.
 
for those who are international and still waiting, thought you might care for an update: if a decision hasn’t been made early enough for you to arrive to SG by July 2nd, you’d have to re-apply for next years intake unfortunately
 
Hey guys, I have a question about gaining research experience in Singapore. I am currently working in a corporate job full time but do have my evenings or early mornings to spare, and I would like to explore engaging in research projects. Does anyone have any ideas of how I can go about doing so? Thanks!
 
NonTradApplicant said:
Hey guys, I have a question about gaining research experience in Singapore. I am currently working in a corporate job full time but do have my evenings or early mornings to spare, and I would like to explore engaging in research projects. Does anyone have any ideas of how I can go about doing so? Thanks!
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Heya! I think you can go through the universities faculty listings and try to email them based on your topic of interest. Most PIs would gladly take a free intern, but probably not until CB phase 3 starts.
 
hopefulfor2020 said:
Heya! I think you can go through the universities faculty listings and try to email them based on your topic of interest. Most PIs would gladly take a free intern, but probably not until CB phase 3 starts.
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I am also interested in an RA position. But I guess similar to OP, it is hard to RA part time so I guess I will need to quit my job.

Also, I am a career switcher. Do you know if we actually need to study science to RA for med school faculty?

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk
 
kaion said:
I am also interested in an RA position. But I guess similar to OP, it is hard to RA part time so I guess I will need to quit my job.

Also, I am a career switcher. Do you know if we actually need to study science to RA for med school faculty?

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk
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I think for a RA position, it would depend on the PI, but almost 90% of them probably would ask for some sort of biology background because otherwise they would need to spend a lot of time on you to catch up with the basics unless you come in with other skills like statistics, programming which can help them with data analysis in the lab and then you can learn the lab basics while on the job.
 
kaion said:
I am also interested in an RA position. But I guess similar to OP, it is hard to RA part-time so I guess I will need to quit my job.

Also, I am a career switcher. Do you know if we actually need to study science to RA for med school faculty?

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

You mean a paid RA position, right? It would be hard to get RA positions without having knowledge of science or prior experience as a research assistant. I have seen some people who worked as a free intern for a semester, due to lack of their previous experience, and changed their position to a paid one later. You can try this if you don't have previous experience. I hope you can get a good position. In addition, it depends on whether you are looking for a position in a wet lab or dry lab. If you have done some computer programing and analysis before in a corporation and looking for a position in a bioinformatics lab, they would gladly take your offer. Good luck!
 
Hi everyone,

I’m in the midst of my mcat prep. Was wondering if anyone has attended or heard any reviews of the PREPZONE unlimited group classes?
 
Hi I was wondering if there are anyone on the waiting list? You can PM me!
 
Ay...Sorry for digging up this ancient thread 😅 but I just got accepted to Duke-NUS class of 2025 and I was wondering if there's any current student (especially international!!) who would be willing to give me some advice regarding housing, living expenses, lifestyle etc. Please let me know, I'd be eternally grateful and happy holidays everyone <3
 
Hey, I noticed that you’re a reapplicant that got accepted for the 2021 cycle! Congrats on that 🙂 May I know what did you do differently? And care share your stats?

p.s sorry for replying here. Tried to message you privately but can’t seem to...
Yes, it did. Changed to “rejected”.
 
speedysloth said:
Ay...Sorry for digging up this ancient thread 😅 but I just got accepted to Duke-NUS class of 2025 and I was wondering if there's any current student (especially international!!) who would be willing to give me some advice regarding housing, living expenses, lifestyle etc. Please let me know, I'd be eternally grateful and happy holidays everyone <3
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Hi there!

I'm also from the class of 2025, although I'm a local applicant. We have a telegram chat group for those who got an offer, would you like to join?

t.me

Join group chat on Telegram

t.me t.me

See you around! 🙂
 
Somewhereovertherainbow said:
Hey, I noticed that you’re a reapplicant that got accepted for the 2021 cycle! Congrats on that 🙂 May I know what did you do differently? And care share your stats?

p.s sorry for replying here. Tried to message you privately but can’t seem to...
Yes, it did. Changed to “rejected”.
Click to expand...

Hey! Sorry for the confusion, I'm not actually a reapplicant haha! I'm a 2020-2021 cycle applicant and I was just kinda lurking on this thread for the previous cycle for information. So I'm afraid I can't answer your first question, but as for the second, 3.6 ish GPA, 516 MCAT, a few years of research & a few publications, not much other than that 🙂
 
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