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Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

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Can students with all A+s be rejected to medicine, if they do bad in interviews in Auckland?
What sort of questions do they ask in interviews?
 
juna said:
Can students with all A+s be rejected to medicine, if they do bad in interviews in Auckland?
What sort of questions do they ask in interviews?
Click to expand...

Sure can. If you get a 2/10 interview score (i.e 1/5 from both interviewers) then you are automatically removed from selection
Not sure how common this is though. I'd have to assume that this doesn't happen much at all...


[Offtopic] Whoopsies! Changed that now before I get hunted down... :S [/Offtopic]
 
Is Auckland like Otago that you get lecture slides and basically that is all you need to know for the tests? Or are there lots of stuff that we have to know from the Textbooks that we are advised to buy?

P.S Thank you so much to everyone who's answered my annoying little questions, it's very much appreciated!
 
juna said:
Can students with all A+s be rejected to medicine, if they do bad in interviews in Auckland?
What sort of questions do they ask in interviews?
Click to expand...
Juna, just to throw this out there... Your profile says you're in year 12, which means you have another year and a bit at secondary school, and a good 10 months before you need to make any decisions as to where you go. UMAT next year could also give you a good idea of where you should go (for example, if you get an amazing UMAT, then Otago has to be looking pretty good).
To answer your previous question: Can't speak for Auckland specifically, but textbooks? I wouldn't bother. The library should have them, and if you find you like them, you can always buy them after a few weeks, I wouldn't rush out and buy them early (ok, I actually *did* rush out and buy them early, but I regret this).
 
juna said:
Is Auckland like Otago that you get lecture slides and basically that is all you need to know for the tests? Or are there lots of stuff that we have to know from the Textbooks that we are advised to buy?

P.S Thank you so much to everyone who's answered my annoying little questions, it's very much appreciated!
Click to expand...

You get enough info in the coursebook, lecture slides, and handwritten notes to do well in the tests. Textbooks are useful for clarifying information, or having it explained in another way. I actually look back and think I could have used textbooks last year a lot more than i did, as I live off them now. But like frootloop says, don't buy any until you've tried them and decide you need them. In any case, the library has stacks, which most people dont realise. Especially the med-school library, there's literally about 30 copies of tortora that sit on the shelves all day just asking to be borrowed!
 
We had a person from Auckland University coming into our school, and she told us that 80% of the people who get into med have straight A+s in all their papers, including the 'non- relevant' papers for medicine. Is this true? Because I thought that as long as you maintain a B+ average for your other papers, and do well in the four papers like chem and medsci, it didn't matter.
Isn't getting A+s in ALL your papers really hard? I thought that there were only a few people who managed this, let alone 80% of the people who get into med...
Is she right?
 
juna said:
Isn't getting A+s in ALL your papers really hard? I thought that there were only a few people who managed this, let alone 80% of the people who get into med...
Is she right?
Click to expand...
Depends on the paper, and depends on the person. There are many examples of straight A+ students in HSFY at Otago (though it's far from mainstream), although I hear Auckland papers are collectively harder... Also, do factor in the fact that "person from Auckland" is not necessarily "person who knows what they're talking about from Auckland" or "person who told you the exact truth from Auckland, rather than exaggerating figures so you'll work harder or think more carefully about whether you want to do OLY1"...

I'll stop there and wait for an Aucklander to answer your question...
 
juna said:
We had a person from Auckland University coming into our school, and she told us that 80% of the people who get into med have straight A+s in all their papers, including the 'non- relevant' papers for medicine. Is this true?
Click to expand...

A read through the existing threads on this forum would have told you that this isn't true.
 
Really? hmmm.. She was like "In your first year, if you want to get into medicine, you have to kick ass (excuse the term) because 80% people who got in had A+s in all their papers last year."
If that's not true, I'm glad lol
 
juna said:
Really? hmmm.. She was like "In your first year, if you want to get into medicine, you have to kick ass (excuse the term) because 80% people who got in had A+s in all their papers last year."
If that's not true, I'm glad lol
Click to expand...
It's perfectly possible (however unlikely) that 80% of the med 2 cohort of this year did get an A+ in all their papers. But at Auckland only the 4 core papers count towards your overall chances at making med (so long as you've kept your overall GPA above the threshold), so those 'extra A+s' wont have made any difference in terms of getting those people into med.
That said, I sincerely doubt that 80% of the current cohort got a GPA of 9 in first year.
 
Let's look at this statistically. Last year we were provided with a graph in poplhlth that showed 30-40 each year get an A+ in that paper. Assuming this hasn't increased from last year (no reason why it should) that means the maximum number of people out of the whole year that are able to get A+ is in that range. Obviously, not everyone who gets A+ in poplhlth will get A+ in the other core papers, so the real number is somewhere in the 20s, just for the four core papers.

Following on from this, even less would get A+ in all their papers since many people put relatively less effort into the non-cores.

Considering that the 2nd year med cohort is around 210 people, the conclusion is that 80% statement is way off.
 
govpop the graph we were provided with on the site for population health shows that 80 people got A+ in 2010. but regardless juna that lady is jerking your chain...

on an unrelated note: my friend is on his way to a core GPA of 9 but his umat percentile is 0-20 :(
he asked me if he should give up.. i told him to keep going (even though i dont know his chances).. do you think he should give up?
 
Never give up mate. Go hard till the end. Giving up is like shooting yourself in the foot before you've finished the race.
 
juna said:
Really? hmmm.. She was like "In your first year, if you want to get into medicine, you have to kick ass (excuse the term) because 80% people who got in had A+s in all their papers last year."
Click to expand...
In addition to the above statistical facts, unless this lady *works in* the admissions office, there's no reason at all to think that she's giving you an accurate figure... You'll find at university that the world, and even the university, is a very large place, and people generally don't know very much of what happens outside of their specialized area (for instance, your Physiology lecturer would occasionally tell you stuff your Biochemistry lecturer would frown upon), so if this is just a promotion/information lady with no particular ties to the med school, one could argue that she wouldn't know the figures to start with.

As I said before, "person from Auckland" doesn't necessarily equate to "person from Auckland who knows what they're talking about". One of the things a university is supposed to develop in its students is independent thinking, and not just trusting whatever comes out of your teacher/lecturer's mouth, so when you get to the stage in life that I'm in right now, you'll be more and more doubtful and suspicious of what people tell you, which is part of the purpose of tertiary education.
 
cathay808 said:
In addition to the above statistical facts, unless this lady *works in* the admissions office, there's no reason at all to think that she's giving you an accurate figure... You'll find at university that the world, and even the university, is a very large place, and people generally don't know very much of what happens outside of their specialized area (for instance, your Physiology lecturer would occasionally tell you stuff your Biochemistry lecturer would frown upon), so if this is just a promotion/information lady with no particular ties to the med school, one could argue that she wouldn't know the figures to start with.

As I said before, "person from Auckland" doesn't necessarily equate to "person from Auckland who knows what they're talking about". One of the things a university is supposed to develop in its students is independent thinking, and not just trusting whatever comes out of your teacher/lecturer's mouth, so when you get to the stage in life that I'm in right now, you'll be more and more doubtful and suspicious of what people tell you, which is part of the purpose of tertiary education.
Click to expand...

qft! Nicely said cathay.
 
Anybody heard about the rumor that is going around that Auckland is going to take the interview process out as part of their selection process for medicine? I spoke to the Student Center lady this morning, and she said that she also have heard of this rumor, but the head of faculty (of medicine) have not confirmed anything at this stage. I wonder if it is just a rumor based on nothing, or with some substantial backbone to it. Any ideas?

Oops, also, I forgot to add- thanks to everyone who answered my previous question. From reading through the threads on this website, what they lady said did not seem to add up, and I was confused. Thanks :)
 
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juna said:
Anybody heard about the rumor that is going around that Auckland is going to take the interview process out as part of their selection process for medicine? I spoke to the Student Center lady this morning, and she said that she also have heard of this rumor, but the head of faculty (of medicine) have not confirmed anything at this stage. I wonder if it is just a rumor based on nothing, or with some substantial backbone to it. Any ideas?

Oops, also, I forgot to add- thanks to everyone who answered my previous question. From reading through the threads on this website, what they lady said did not seem to add up, and I was confused. Thanks :)
Click to expand...

That rumour is partly true. They are looking at removing the interview from the selection process for the 2013 intake I think, but no decision has been made as of yet. Meetings are still taking place and we haven't been told the outcome. We were however told that the dean was trying to do this, and as you can imagine it wasn't taken very positively by the students
 
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