Anu

[canada83]

I have an interview with ANU in a few weeks. Does anyone have any opinions on the quality of anu and thier medical program? What i've read about the school suggests that it's one of the best in OZ. The class size of about 80 is excellent. On the other hand, the school is newly established. Also, any info about the international interview style/questions would be helpful.

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[Ezekiel20]

One of the things you will learn about the Australian psyche is that they're not really into rankings.

ANU, although recently established, has a slightly longer history for their clinical schools that have accommodated USyd students in the 90's.

Their curriculum is heavily borrowed from other grad-entry programmes like USyd.

All I can say is that you can become a competent clinician by studying medicine at ANU. That is to say that you can stop worrying about the quality of teaching getting in the way of you being able to have a rewarding career in medicine.

Good luck

 

[mak530]

ANU is fine, just as good as any other in Australia.

The interview is fun, actually. I really enjoyed it - no mean interviewers and it was pretty relaxed.

With ANU they have a rural focus, so make sure you think about that when preparing for your interview.

 

[iDream]

Hey,

I have seen some discussion about UQ, USyd and Flinders recently, but not much about ANU (is it less popular than others for some reason?). I was wondering if there are any current/past ANU students (or anyone with some information) who could provide feedback regarding ANUs graduate entry medical program from their own experiences in terms of its faculty, clinical schools/electives, program structure, internship aspects etc. Also, are there any particular similarities/differences that may be important to highlight between ANUs program and those of other schools (UQ for example) that may help one decide between the programs if needed? I look forward to any inputs! Thanks!

iDream

 

[shan564]

ANU isn't discussed much on these forums because they don't accept very many international students. Also, most of us don't want to move halfway across the world just so that we can live in a place like Canberra. That said, ANU generally seems to have the reputation of being "Australia's #1 university" overall. Nobody has any gold-standard rankings, mostly because none of the public universities really stand out as being clearly superior to the others... but if any place has a slight edge in terms of local reputation, it's ANU.

As far as the program itself, UQ is an unfair comparison... as has been discussed in several threads before, lots of people think that UQ's quality is slipping (for a wide variety of reasons). Also, you should know that most Australians make their university choices based primarily on proximity rather than the perceived quality of any given program, so it's really hard for international students to make an objective comparison.

ANU might have a slightly better reputation in Australia, but that's debatable. The reason I chose USyd was because, since most of the schools seemed fairly similar in terms of quality, I made the decision based primarily on the city in which I'd have to spend 4 years. Sydney > Brisbane > Canberra (of course, that might change depending on how much money you plan to borrow... Sydney is the most expensive city in Australia).

 

[redshifteffect]

Good info by the above posters.

The only thing I'll add to this discussion (which may not have relevance to you) is that there are only three graduate medical schools approved by California:

- Flinders
- USyd
- UQ

http://www.medbd.ca.gov/applicant/schools_recognized.html

You'll note most of the undergraduate schools (possibly even all) are recognised by California.

If you want to live/work in Cali post-graduation it's important your school be on this list.

 

[shan564]

And it's not just about Cali... a lot of Americans use that California list as the gold standard for which schools are likely to be considered acceptable/equivalent throughout the US. ANU probably isn't on there yet b/c it's a new medical school, but you never know how long it'll take for them to get on the list.

 

[iDream]

Thanks for your feedback shan564 and redshifteffect! Yeah I guess I was trying to weight the pros and cons, if any, to help reach an objective decision if required in the future. Also, I only came across very little information regarding their rotation opportunities etc. while browsing their website, so I thought of checking here in case anyone else had more in-depth information. I will definitely keep the points you mentioned in mind! 🙂