Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

[Kikii]

Okay, thanks g.walker and qbob.
Are people's UMAT scores clustered around a certain percentile though?

No! Not for aucklanders. UMAT counts for little in auckland admission, your time is better spent trying to get those A+'s, which are much more important. Wait until the holidays to start UMAT.

Thanks govpop. But I still don't know whether I want to do HSFY or Biomed. And if I'm going to Otago I should probably try my best at UMAT.

Anyway, I know there are some courses/tutors/mentors available for first year Biomed but they're kind of expensive.
Would they be most useful for good tips/advice? Would I be able to find just as good advice/tips on MSO?

 

[govpop]

Thanks govpop. But I still don't know whether I want to do HSFY or Biomed. And if I'm going to Otago I should probably try my best at UMAT.

woops, i thought you were OLY1 this year, my bad.

Anyway, I know there are some courses/tutors/mentors available for first year Biomed but they're kind of expensive.
Would they be most useful for good tips/advice? Would I be able to find just as good advice/tips on MSO?

tutors are a waste of time. they're mostly just 2nd and 3rd years trying to exploit the first years. and besides if someone needs a tutor to get through first year, how will they cope with whats to come.

 

[g.walker]

tutors are a waste of time. they're mostly just 2nd and 3rd years trying to exploit the first years. and besides if someone needs a tutor to get through first year, how will they cope with whats to come.

There is a professional tutoring service for a range of competitive Auckland courses including law, commerce as well as biomed/HSFY who focus on the other aspects that people trip on rather than the course material itself, but yea most of the tutors out there are just 2nd or 3rd years who, while they may be useful, should not be neccessary. Indeed, if 1st year is hard enough then 2nd and 3rd year wont be much easier.

 

[Nealie]

Kikii - just to reiterate what I've probably already said.....the interview is the key to Auckland admissions... Obviously GPA ranks you in order to qualify for an interview, but I firmly believe that the 'deck' of applicants (so to speak) get's thoroughly shuffled as a result of the interview process. Check out other threads on the supposed 25% weighting of the interview and how that plays out in reality.

 

[Kikii]

Thanks govpop and g.walker

g.walker: So would you say this particular "professional tutoring service" is useful then?

Check out other threads on the supposed 25% weighting of the interview and how that plays out in reality.

Okay, thanks Nealie. I think I already read about this somewhere. How most applicants who get the interview have very similar GPAs, therefore, it's really up to the interview score in the end (especially since UMAT is not that important).

Would you say that one of the main points of the interview is to check that the applicant genuinely wants to do med?


Thanks

 

[jazy_ac]

Minimum gpa to get an interview at auckland.

hi guys,i was just wondering what kind of a gpa do i need to have in my core papers in auckland uni's biomedical oly1 to get an interview?does 8 look good?

Im still not sure how they decide whether this guy /gal should be called for an interview or not.Someone care to explain?

 

[Corn_Add_Risk]

I think they give out interviews based on the overall GPA. It is after the interviews that your they rank you according to the core GPA.
As to the issue regarding what GPA is needed for an interview... It's hard to say. I think with and 8 gpa overall you should be ok, but the trend when I was doing oly1 was that each year needed a higher and higher GPA to get an interview. My year was 7.5 I think. However, I know that thye have recently changed the grade thresholds for first year grades. This might mean that the GPA required will remain the same, but the amount of work required will be equal or greater. ^_^
Still my best advice to you is to aim for 9 or close to 9. Auckland uni is HEAVILY biased towards GPA.<_<

 

[4everAlone]

I think they give out interviews based on the overall GPA. It is after the interviews that your they rank you according to the core GPA.
As to the issue regarding what GPA is needed for an interview... It's hard to say. I think with and 8 gpa overall you should be ok, but the trend when I was doing oly1 was that each year needed a higher and higher GPA to get an interview. My year was 7.5 I think. However, I know that thye have recently changed the grade thresholds for first year grades. This might mean that the GPA required will remain the same, but the amount of work required will be equal or greater. ^_^
Still my best advice to you is to aim for 9 or close to 9. Auckland uni is HEAVILY biased towards GPA.<_<

I'm pretty sure interviews are given out on the core gpa...

"Following the successful completion of the eight prescribed first year courses, applicants achieving a minimum GPA of 6.0 (B+ average) are eligible for consideration for an admissions interview.
All eligible applicants will then be ranked on their grades achieved in the four common courses (highlighted below in bold) that are offered in both the BHSc and the BSc (Biomedical Science) programmes.
Twice as many eligible candidates as there are places available in the medical programme will be interviewed."

The only time your overall gpa is looked at is to make sure it's higher than 6, then everything is based off core.

 

[Corn_Add_Risk]

Ah ok..my mistake then.
So they now only rank you according to core? I think in my year they gave out interviews based on overall GPA, and then after the interviews your core GPA came into play. I guess that's a bit better for first years then, allows them to focus on key papers.(y)

 

[4everAlone]

Ah ok..my mistake then.
So they now only rank you according to core? I think in my year they gave out interviews based on overall GPA, and then after the interviews your core GPA came into play. I guess that's a bit better for first years then, allows them to focus on key papers.(y)

I thought they always did but you'd know your year a lot better than I would so I stand corrected, must have been brought in the year after yours? I still fail to see how its fair comparing the overall gpa of Health sci's vs biomedders though...

 

[jazy_ac]

so what do you think 4everAlone,is it possible to get an interview with a core gpa of 8?

thanks for ans corn_add_risk.I hope you get into med in 2012.

 

[4everAlone]

so what do you think 4everAlone,is it possible to get an interview with a core gpa of 8?

thanks for ans corn_add_risk.I hope you get into med in 2012.

I agree with corn_add_risk in thinking you'd be sweet for an interview with an 8 core gpa =)

 

[g.walker]

You should get an interview with GPA of 8. Actually getting accepted is made a lot easier with a higher GPA

 

[jazy_ac]

Thanks for helping guys.
my confidence is a bit shaky for one of the core papers,since after getting my marks for the test i calculated the highest i can get in it is at the border of A- and A.And the other two frm this semster are sitting comfortably on A(A+ if i do really good from now on).for the core ppr next semster im relatively confident that i will get an A+.
Hopefully everything will go as planned or better.

 

[g.walker]

Thanks for helping guys.
my confidence is a bit shaky for one of the core papers,since after getting my marks for the test i calculated the highest i can get in it is at the border of A- and A.And the other two frm this semster are sitting comfortably on A(A+ if i do really good from now on).for the core ppr next semster im relatively confident that i will get an A+.
Hopefully everything will go as planned or better.

A core GPA of 8.25 - 8.75 is what most med students got in OLY1 (according to plenty of anecdotes). 3A+'s and an A- gives you an 8.5, and considering that they raised the grade cutoffs, Id say you are in a perfect position GPA wise

 

[Corn_Add_Risk]

Echo what g.walker said. The raised grade boundries mean that the GPA needed will theoretically be lower as now an A would be equivalent to an A plus in previous years. Since your getting A and and A minus's I think your on a solid footing.

Oh also thanks for the support..im not applying to auck this year as I already got in last year in aus..Im just finishing my degree..so you have one less person to compete with(yy)

 

[italianopalo]

Hi there, sorry to butt in but as everyone is aware, GPA counts for 60% of the overall ranking for MB ChB entry. Is the aforementioned GPA referring to core papers or overall?

Cheers

 

[g.walker]

Hi there, sorry to butt in but as everyone is aware, GPA counts for 60% of the overall ranking for MB ChB entry. Is the aforementioned GPA referring to core papers or overall?

Cheers

Its quite a confusing (and honestly stupid) system we have for selection. If things are still the same, students must first have a B+ average overall in all the 8 papers. After that, they rank them according to the core GPA (that is the 4 papers) from top to bottom. Now that they have a list of students starting with the highest core GPA to the lowest, they place a cutoff, which is basically how many applicants they want to interview, which according to the website is 2x the number of seats, but according to lordgarlic, its actually more than 2x. As such, the cutoff is not exactly preset, and rather it is determined by the class performance as a whole

the 60% weighing is for the CORE GPA

 

[Corn_Add_Risk]

Simple truth is get a 9.0 and your'e in.

 

[jazy_ac]

not to forget the automatic kicking out in the interview(i think it is the grade of 1 from 1-5,5 being the best).correct me if im wrong.