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[Undergrad] CIE Student Interested in Studying Med In Australia?

Littlebro

Member
Hi all,

I am a student in NZ studying Cambridge exams and I'm curious to see if anyone knows how Australian Medical Schools (like Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle) rank students taking these.
Like how many A* would put one in a good place for an interview?

And also, what UMAT raw mark/percentile do you need to get?

Any info from anyone who has gone through this process would be appreciated :)
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
I'll do the obligatory warning:

Australia has a pretty massive oversupply of medical graduates. Right now, New Zealanders who study there are category one for internships. But by the time you'd graduate in 6 or so years time, it'd be entirely possible that New Zealanders studying in Aus could miss out on jobs to ensure all of the Australians get one. And NZ has oversupply issues of its own (last year it took a last-minute mad scrambe to ensure all domestic students got jobs), so it'd be pretty difficult to come home for PGY1 if you missed out in Australia. Even if you did get a PGY1 job over there, their training pipeline is more congested than ours further up as well.

So going to Australia to avoid the competitive first year entry at Otago/Auckland would be very much at your own risk.

Then there's the issue of paying for your study and the costs of living while you're over there. My understanding is that New Zealanders aren't eligible for an Australian student loan for the first few years, so you'd have to front up probably > $10,000 per year in course fees, buy all of your books/materials and cover all of your living costs. If your parents are super rich, that might not be an issue for you. But if not, you're going to have to find an awful lot of money from somewhere.

There are more comprehensive posts regarding the issues facing kiwis who are looking at going to Aussie for med (and I'd suggest finding and reading them), but those are the two biggest ones.

I would suggest that you'd be much better off trying for entry here (and if your academic grades and UMAT scores are good enough for Aus undergrad entry, you'd have a very good chance of getting in here). If you miss out here, then would be the time to start thinking about whether heading to Australia would be worth it for you.

Edit: Back when I applied to Otago during HSFY in 2011, I applied to a few Aussie schools as a back-up. Our GPA translates *very* favorably over there, so I got several interviews (and an offer at one school which didn't do interviews). I didn't have to go to any of the interviews in the end, but the point is that HSFY/OLY1 students are in a very good position to apply to Aussie schools, if you wanted to do that as a back-stop during first year.
 

nira

Regular Member
Got to give it to Fruitloop this is well put. Cant argue with it. However if you are still interested I can give you some advice in terms of entry.
from the uni's you have mentioned. only Newcastle requires umat, given that your not rural or ATSCI, the cutoff scores are rather competitive. usually your section 1 score must be above 60 and the others need to be above 50 for an interview. this is on top of your cumulative gpa/atar meeting the threshold of 95. I'm assuming your applying as a non standard hence for entry into Melbourne or Sydney, you will need a competitive GPA of around 6-6.5+ and a competitive gamsat score( 65+). but if you are a school leaver then you will need an ATAR of 99.95 to be competitive. however if you are looking for broader options, then Uni such as JCU will only take into account your GPA and written application for an interview, from which entry is based on performance on the interview and GPA. But as I mentioned earlier what frootloop is saying is absolutely correct and I hope whatever decision you end up making is the right one. good luck :) feel free to ask anymore questions.
 
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A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
@nire I don't think @Littlebro is looking to apply as non-standard since he's studying Cambridge exams, is that correct?

@Littlebro of the three unis you mentioned Sydney requires ATAR 99.95, Melb 99.90 (or 99.0+ if you are happy with a 65K/yr full-fee place later). We don't know for sure how NZ marks are converted to ATAR equivalent, only see the TAC/unis saying you request NZQA to convert who then sends the result directly to them.

Last year I found this doc A level conversion table to atar
but it has been withdrawn since. Page 6 shows British A conversions however didn't make sense to me since you need just 2A* & 1C to get 99.95

For Newcastle and other unis see this table for the various ATAR/UMAT required
[Undergrad] - 2016-17 Med schools Selection Criteria Y12s & Non-standards | Med Students Online

Hope this helps.
 

Littlebro

Member
I'll do the obligatory warning:

Australia has a pretty massive oversupply of medical graduates. Right now, New Zealanders who study there are category one for internships. But by the time you'd graduate in 6 or so years time, it'd be entirely possible that New Zealanders studying in Aus could miss out on jobs to ensure all of the Australians get one. And NZ has oversupply issues of its own (last year it took a last-minute mad scrambe to ensure all domestic students got jobs), so it'd be pretty difficult to come home for PGY1 if you missed out in Australia. Even if you did get a PGY1 job over there, their training pipeline is more congested than ours further up as well.

So going to Australia to avoid the competitive first year entry at Otago/Auckland would be very much at your own risk.

Then there's the issue of paying for your study and the costs of living while you're over there. My understanding is that New Zealanders aren't eligible for an Australian student loan for the first few years, so you'd have to front up probably > $10,000 per year in course fees, buy all of your books/materials and cover all of your living costs. If your parents are super rich, that might not be an issue for you. But if not, you're going to have to find an awful lot of money from somewhere.

There are more comprehensive posts regarding the issues facing kiwis who are looking at going to Aussie for med (and I'd suggest finding and reading them), but those are the two biggest ones.

I would suggest that you'd be much better off trying for entry here (and if your academic grades and UMAT scores are good enough for Aus undergrad entry, you'd have a very good chance of getting in here). If you miss out here, then would be the time to start thinking about whether heading to Australia would be worth it for you.

Edit: Back when I applied to Otago during HSFY in 2011, I applied to a few Aussie schools as a back-up. Our GPA translates *very* favorably over there, so I got several interviews (and an offer at one school which didn't do interviews). I didn't have to go to any of the interviews in the end, but the point is that HSFY/OLY1 students are in a very good position to apply to Aussie schools, if you wanted to do that as a back-stop during first year.

Thank you @frootloop for your comprehensive reply. Yeah, my main motive for wanting to go to Australia to study undergraduate direct would be to avoid the maligned premed experience in NZ, although I am totally fine with staying here; and to be honest whatever happens that is almost certainly going to be the case.

Just one question, how/where can you get undergraduate direct/provisional entry to Australian med schools after the first year of uni in NZ? From my understanding, one is no longer eligible for that option once they have started an undergraduate degree elsewhere.
 

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Thank you @frootloop for your comprehensive reply. Yeah, my main motive for wanting to go to Australia to study undergraduate direct would be to avoid the maligned premed experience in NZ, although I am totally fine with staying here; and to be honest whatever happens that is almost certainly going to be the case.

Just one question, how/where can you get undergraduate direct/provisional entry to Australian med schools after the first year of uni in NZ? From my understanding, one is no longer eligible for that option once they have started an undergraduate degree elsewhere.

Hi,

You should be able to apply to those schools that take non-standard applicants. You can refer to @A1's post above.
 

Littlebro

Member
Got to give it to Fruitloop this is well put. Cant argue with it. However if you are still interested I can give you some advice in terms of entry.
from the uni's you have mentioned. only Newcastle requires umat, given that your not rural or ATSCI, the cutoff scores are rather competitive. usually your section 1 score must be above 60 and the others need to be above 50 for an interview. this is on top of your cumulative gpa/atar meeting the threshold of 95. I'm assuming your applying as a non standard hence for entry into Melbourne or Sydney, you will need a competitive GPA of around 6-6.5+ and a competitive gamsat score( 65+). but if you are a school leaver then you will need an ATAR of 99.95 to be competitive. however if you are looking for broader options, then Uni such as JCU will only take into account your GPA and written application for an interview, from which entry is based on performance on the interview and GPA. But as I mentioned earlier what frootloop is saying is absolutely correct and I hope whatever decision you end up making is the right one. good luck :) feel free to ask anymore questions.

Thanks for the reply @nire , although as a high school leaver after this year, if I were to go to Australia I would be applying for a CSP or BMP.

I was looking for the equivalent CIE grades to fit the aforementioned ATARs, as those are the exams I am taking at school right now.

But out of curiosity, what do those UMAT scores mean? Like what does a UMAT score of 60 in one section translate to in raw marks?
 

Littlebro

Member
@nire I don't think @Littlebro is looking to apply as non-standard since he's studying Cambridge exams, is that correct?

@Littlebro of the three unis you mentioned Sydney requires ATAR 99.95, Melb 99.90 (or 99.0+ if you are happy with a 65K/yr full-fee place later). We don't know for sure how NZ marks are converted to ATAR equivalent, only see the TAC/unis saying you request NZQA to convert who then sends the result directly to them.

Last year I found this doc A level conversion table to atar
but it has been withdrawn since. Page 6 shows British A conversions however didn't make sense to me since you need just 2A* & 1C to get 99.95

For Newcastle and other unis see this table for the various ATAR/UMAT required
[Undergrad] - 2016-17 Med schools Selection Criteria Y12s & Non-standards | Med Students Online

Hope this helps.

Thanks @A1. That graphic is really helpful, and I will approach the unis about this matter.
 

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Hi @Littlebro ,

You can reply to multiple users/posts in one post rather than making separate posts in the future.

Thank you.
 

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frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Thank you @frootloop for your comprehensive reply. Yeah, my main motive for wanting to go to Australia to study undergraduate direct would be to avoid the maligned premed experience in NZ, although I am totally fine with staying here; and to be honest whatever happens that is almost certainly going to be the case.
To be honest, the fear around our first year courses is over-blown. HSFY has a much lower workload than laters years of medical school, so to be honest if you're planning on going through medical school, you have to be able to handle much worse than first year! The subjective pressure is pretty awful (certainly moreso than second and third year med). But again, that pressure is back with a vengeance when you get to 5th year exams or the 'oh s**t I'm going to be an actual doctor next year' of trainee intern year. Not to mention the workload and intense pressure you get as a junior doctor.

So while there's a lot of fear and general anxiety around HSFY/OLY1, remember that you're planning on going through medical school and becoming a doctor. If you're game for that, then you can handle first year.

You could always just apply to Australian universities this year, then defer your place for a year while you tried to get in here, I guess?

Just one question, how/where can you get undergraduate direct/provisional entry to Australian med schools after the first year of uni in NZ? From my understanding, one is no longer eligible for that option once they have started an undergraduate degree elsewhere.
You can't enter one of the 'provisional' entry schemes the graduate-entry schools run for high-school leavers after HSFY. But (at least when I applied back in 2011) most of the undergraduate-entry schools allow what's called 'non-standard' entry, for people with incomplete undergraduate degrees. As HSFY is year 1 of a BSc, you can still apply to those schools with your HSFY marks (at UNSW, I'm pretty sure they use a combination of your HSFY and school grades).

But out of curiosity, what do those UMAT scores mean? Like what does a UMAT score of 60 in one section translate to in raw marks?
60 is the raw mark, which isn't a percentage, or the number of questions you got right. It's a statistical output which is essentially meaningless to the end user - ACER don't release how they calculate it.

For what it's worth, a raw score of 60 is usually somewhere in the region of 80th-90th percentile, depending on the section and the year. For example, in 2011 my 65 in section one was ~95th%ile, my 62 in section 2 was ~95th%ile and my 60 in section 3 was ~75th%ile.
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
You can't enter one of the 'provisional' entry schemes the graduate-entry schools run for high-school leavers after HSFY. But (at least when I applied back in 2011) most of the undergraduate-entry schools allow what's called 'non-standard' entry, for people with incomplete undergraduate degrees. As HSFY is year 1 of a BSc, you can still apply to those schools with your HSFY marks (at UNSW, I'm pretty sure they use a combination of your HSFY and school grades).

To clarify based on 2017 info: there are a few undergraduate universities that still accept non-standard students (non school leavers). JCU (which doesn't use UMAT at all), UNSW (takes ATAR/equivalent into account regardless of how long ago you graduated yr 12), JMP (Newcastle and New England, one application, you get allocated to a campus. 60/50/50 UMAT minimum for interview), WSU (don't know much about this one), Curtin (not many spots for non Curtin non standards), and UTAS (magical unicorn method of offering very limited number of spots to non standards but presume very high UMAT will be required. Also, this is the last year they're accepting non standards - or so the current story goes).

Depending on how many semesters of Uni you've done, some of those mentioned above will also use a GPA/ATAR combo to determine eligibility.
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
@LMG yeah that's roughly the same list as back when I applied - it's still a lot of extra options for someone in HSFY or OLY1, who are only eligible to for Otago or Auckland haha.

It's still pretty inadvisable for an NZer to apply to the Aussie schools at all (lets just ignore that I was desperate enough to back in the day haha). But I figured a good compromise for the OP would be to sit HSFY/OLY1, while still knowing they'd have quite a few options in Aus (4 or 5 schools being double the number we have in the whole country) if first year here went sideways.

[OFFTOPIC]
And you were proudly proclaiming your scores were the rarest ever seen 60/60/60 :p
None of my section scores were out-of-this-world high, for sure. But I genuinely haven't seen anyone on here, or met anyone in real life, who's gotten 60+ in all three sections. Obviously I'm not the only person in the history of UMAT to do it haha, but it doesn't seem that common.

There are plenty of people who score way higher overall and/or in individual sections, so I have to take solace in my high-ish consistency across the sections :p [/OFFTOPIC]
 

A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
None of my section scores were out-of-this-world high, for sure. But I genuinely haven't seen anyone on here, or met anyone in real life, who's gotten 60+ in all three sections.

Oh right... I thought you meant spot on 60/60/60.

In terms of consistency *and high* scores this guy takes the cake - 79/74/71 to go with ATAR 99.70 !
UNSW Med Offers 2017 | Med Students Online

(Tried to put under Offtopic but didn't work!)
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Oh right... I thought you meant spot on 60/60/60.

In terms of consistency *and high* scores this guy takes the cake - 79/74/71 to go with ATAR 99.70 !
UNSW Med Offers 2017 | Med Students Online

(Tried to put under Offtopic but didn't work!)
Oh right haha, now that would have been some serious consistency.

But wowzers, that's beyond impressive. 70/70/70... Pretty sure ACER should have sent him a commemorative plaque or something for that
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
@LBoG got 60 something/80 something/60 something. Champ.

Just realised, for the OP, UTAS won't be an option for them if they're going to be in first year Uni in 2018/applying non-standard for 2019.
 

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lordgarlic

MSO Kiwi #1
Emeritus Staff
I'm quite inclined to agree with frootloop that moving to Australia is no where near as seductive or rosy as it used to be.

I think it's exceptionally tempting as an 18 year old to do if I can get in I will avoid the premed year in New Zealand. But there are so many ramifications these days with some potentially very serious ones down the line. Fees up front, needing to pay for living costs (if you don't live at home), the potential of not getting a job at the end, difficulty getting onto training schemes the list goes on.

Do I think that a career in medicine these days is as rosy and nice as it used to be? I'm inclined to say no and more and more hurdles have appeared over the years that just make it more difficult than ever.

I would say the premed year is a great experience to get used to university in all honesty

But if you do insist to go to Australia I would say have a serious think about where you want to do your training and where you want to work in the future and be certain that you would want to live there for a long period of time. For example, don't go applying for newcastle if the thought of living in armadale is something you can't comprehend.
 

biom

Regular Member
Supreme Overlord of the Chatbox
It is incredibly competitive to get into Med in Australia. Does anyone really have the view that it is easier than in NZ?

and.... the government has announced that NZ students will not be eligible for SCP/BMP places. ie full fees. not clear if this change will pass the Senate and not clear whether that means that kiwis can only apply to schools that offer full-fee places.
 

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