Undergrad Entry Med Schools

[Soma13]

How good do your high school grades need to be in order to get accepted into an undergrad entry med school in Australia or New Zealand? By the way I 'm an American citizen and will have a BS in Biology in 2005.

-thanks

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[P'??sT]

Its hard to say as you have a different rating system I believe. Normally, you would need exceptionally high scores. (Top 0.5 (maybe 1) % of all the other students). Best to find one of the Uni's you might be interested and send them an email about entry.

 

[Purifyer]

In New Zealand there are no longer any direct entry programmes straight out of high school. In both Otago and Auckland you now complete a 'health science year' which is essentially a first year in a BSc covering Physics, Biology, Biostatistics, English, Chemistry, Biochem.

The grades needed to get into first year health science are laughable: 3 C passes in the final year of high school. Needless to say when you have 1500 people in first year competeting for ~140 spots in second year the grades needed to progress aren't as laughable. The grade needed is lowering now that they are taking into account politically correct factors such as UMAT (1/3 x UMAT + 2/3 x Health sci grades = final score at Otago) and life experience though.

I don't have as much information about medical schools in Australia. A friend told me that to apply to non-UMAT schools you needed to be in the top 99.6th percentile in some form of standardised end of high school exam. This friend is extremely bitter at not being a med student however (he came to NZ and didn't make the cut here either) and I wouldn't be surprised if he is exaggerating greatly. Also to my knowledge there are no non-UMAT schools in existence anymore.

 

[Winged Scapula]

How good do your high school grades need to be in order to get accepted into an undergrad entry med school in Australia or New Zealand? By the way I 'm an American citizen and will have a BS in Biology in 2005.

-thanks

Just wondering...if you already have a BS (which might render you ineligible for undergrad entry/for high school leavers) why not consider the graduate entry programmes?

 

[P'??sT]

Just wondering...if you already have a BS (which might render you ineligible for undergrad entry/for high school leavers) why not consider the graduate entry programmes?

Yes, this passed my mind. You wouldn't be eligible for undergrad entry. Look at graduate entry...

 

[Soma13]

The reason I 'm not appling to Grad entry schools is that I don't think my GPA is high enough for admission. Freshman year was pretty bad.


-Purifyer, thanks for the info. Do you know if they allow US citizens in the health science year and then will admit them into NZ med schools? Note I will be receiving my BS in Bilogy next year.

PS. pardon my ignorance but was is UMAT

 

[Winged Scapula]

The reason I 'm not appling to Grad entry schools is that I don't think my GPA is high enough for admission. Freshman year was pretty bad.


-Purifyer, thanks for the info. Do you know if they allow US citizens in the health science year and then will admit them into NZ med schools? Note I will be receiving my BS in Bilogy next year.

PS. pardon my ignorance but was is UMAT

Can't speak for all the schools but I know Flinders weights your undergrad gpa, with the latter two years being given the most heft (ie, that means that your first year might not hurt you as much). At any rate, as noted above, I think most programmes for high school leavers will not accept those with a university degree.

Don't sell yourself out without even trying - the cost of application to these schools is relatively minimal.

 

[Purifyer]

The reason I 'm not appling to Grad entry schools is that I don't think my GPA is high enough for admission. Freshman year was pretty bad.


-Purifyer, thanks for the info. Do you know if they allow US citizens in the health science year and then will admit them into NZ med schools? Note I will be receiving my BS in Bilogy next year.

PS. pardon my ignorance but was is UMAT

I have at least one US citizen in my class who did health science with me - of course it's possible. The problem is that technically you're not allowed to have any university education before entering health science. Maybe that BS will just 'slip your mind'?

More realistically though you should look into the graduate medical programes in Australia. Some programmes care less about GPA than others... try looking at the ones that require a minimum GPA of 4.5-5 / 7 and rely more heavily on GAMSAT / Interview score for acceptance. Plus I think that the requirements (for entry) for International students are a lot more lax than their Australasian counterparts. There might not be a minimum GPA set in stone as exists for local students.

UMAT = touchy feely MCAT for undergraduates focusing more on '''''''''''ethical dilemmas'''''''''''''''''. GAMSAT is the graduate equivalent. You can find out about GPA conversion on the ACER website. International applicants can use their MCAT score instead of taking UMAT/GAMSAT afaik.

 

[redshifteffect]

How good do your high school grades need to be in order to get accepted into an undergrad entry med school in Australia or New Zealand? By the way I 'm an American citizen and will have a BS in Biology in 2005.

-thanks

]

I believe it varies from school to school, but Melbourne are Monash generally require the highest marks for international students (they are both undergraduate universities).

Keep in mind however it also depends on the year group you are applying with; whether or not there are lots of high marks and that most schools are on a rolling basis thus if you qualify and they like you they will accept you after you apply. So apply early.

A list of potential schools you may be interested in:
Melbourne
Monash
University of Western Australia
JCU
Newcastle
Uni of Tasmania
Bond
Adelaide

The main advantage of attending an undergraduate school over a postgraduate one is the ability to stay (in Australia). There is a far greater chance you can stay with one of these universities than a post graduate one. The main ones where this chance is increased are Tasmania and WA.

 

[crackerj]

To get into Melbourne as an undergrad, you have to get at least 1540 in SAT I and around 3.8 GPA.

To get into Melbourne as a postgrad, you have to get around 30 MCAT (+/- 2) and >6.0/7.0 GPA to be selected for an interview.

 

[Patchie]

howdy,

i'm in 3rd year @ Monash (haven't been on here in a while, we started clinical school this year...)

i'm not too sure on the whole policy of international student applications, but can you commence @ Monash with a previous undergraduate degree? even as an international student?

i know that there are certainly exceptions in my year, where a couple of other people have already completed degrees?

BTW - the Monash course is an excellent one, i can recommend it to anybody, and they do sooooooo much evaluation (we all whinge if something isn't right) and the year below us gets to enjoy all the benefits!!

catcha boys and girls

 

[redshifteffect]

howdy,

i'm in 3rd year @ Monash (haven't been on here in a while, we started clinical school this year...)

i'm not too sure on the whole policy of international student applications, but can you commence @ Monash with a previous undergraduate degree? even as an international student?

i know that there are certainly exceptions in my year, where a couple of other people have already completed degrees?

BTW - the Monash course is an excellent one, i can recommend it to anybody, and they do sooooooo much evaluation (we all whinge if something isn't right) and the year below us gets to enjoy all the benefits!!

catcha boys and girls

As far as I'm aware officially you are not officially allowed to attend Monash if you have had a previous degree...however my take is that Monash is kind of flexible on this policy. I know that in terms of these types of rules most Australian unis are flexible for good candidates.

Anyway as far as I am aware this is the only Undergrad uni with this requirement. Also apply to the unis because sometimes official mark requirements aren't always accurate. It depends on when you apply and who is applying in your year.

 

[pitman]

As Kimberli said, don't count out the grad programs -- Flinders, USyd and Melbourne don't look at first year grades (well, "1st-year *level*" actually, but this can be massaged appropriately given US schools usu. don't designate courses as such -- contact the schools and talk it through with them).

UQ looks at 1st years, but has a low gpa cutoff.

-pitman

 

[bagofmonkeys]

Most Aus unis require grades of around 99.3 - 99.7th percentile (high school) to get in.
Adelaide uni used to have a score around 99.6 until 1997 when they decided they were mostly getting nerds who were pushed by parents/careers counsellors. Whatever the reason, they lowered the score to 90 and started heavily weighting the UMAT and a structured interview (oral assessment). Some people don't like this, especially people who get 99.95% as a ranking (highest possible ranking... you can't be better than 100% of people or you'd be better than yourself!) and then don't get in based on the interview.
I don't know why they bother, because most people get around that mark anyway... I think it's just another way of narrowing down the huge applicant field. Clearly many great people still slip through.
Still, that's how it works here.
You can't have ANY university grades to your name to study at Adelaide (unless you're international.... cash opens doors)
Hope I could help