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Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

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I'm in the same boat here lol. But i'm more worried about POPLHLTH111 on Wednesday. They said its going to be different this year, hope it wont be too hard lol. Nice to meet you and good luck for ya exams lol

i swear they are changing everything these days. First I hear from the 3rd years that MBCHB 301 and 302 are a combined paper with ONE 3 hour exam. Then I hear 303 was filled to the brim with multichoice and very little short answer. It seems like the university is moving to 100% MCQ to make their lives easier with marking

but best of luck for your 111 exam coming up
 
Hi toaster, Dr Skyglow just transfered me into your care about my "exam-freak-out syndrome". His advice was "Toaster got THE top mark for 101, so asking him is probably better!"
I'm really worried about the 101 exam, even though it is the last exam but there is so much to learn (both for evolution & biochemistry), and there are only 2 papers available for practice so i have no idea what sort of questions will be in there:(.
Any professional advice?

Thanks

Toaster currently has his current exams and apologies for not being able to give advice at the moment, which isn't exactly useful but yeah.

Meanwhile, Otago med has it easy and is on a break yaaaaay.
 
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Toaster currently has his current exams and apologies for not being able to give advice at the moment, which isn't exactly useful but yeah.

Meanwhile, Otago med has it easy and is on a break yaaaaay.

I forgot med ppl have exams too. Good luck for all your exams toaster!

Is Otago uni on holidays right now?
 
Hey Guys! How are we? Ive noticed that a few of you have exams going so good luck! Im sure everyone on this site work there butts off, so im sure everything will work out! Im new here, and this is my first post, so apologies if I dont come across as being very 'MSO aware'. But ive had a read of most of your posts with regards to NZ med schools, and I cant seem to find answers to a few questions I have. Ive also tried emailing Uni auckland to see if they can help, but they seem to get confused lol.

Well anyway here are my questions..hope you guys can help me out!

1) Ive completed a Bachelor Of Medical Sciences degree from the University of Wollongong last year with an honours class 1 grade. I'm not too sure how the University of Auckland (the uni which i quite like personally) calculated GPAs for Australian applicants, as they seem to say a GPA of 6 on a 9 point scale is required for consideration for NZ applicants (BUT NO MENTION ON AUSSIES!). But Aussies are seen to be as locals too?

2) And by reading the website, they seem to say for graduates that the GPA is calculated over the last 2 years of full time study, however I was wondering whether this is done once we meet the minimum overall threshold or whether this is just how GPA calculation is done full stop for graduates?

3) And lastly, how important is their questionnaire?

Sorry to bombard you guys with questions, but any help would be much appreciated! And again good luck with everything..brilliant website!
 
Hey Guys! How are we? Ive noticed that a few of you have exams going so good luck! Im sure everyone on this site work there butts off, so im sure everything will work out! Im new here, and this is my first post, so apologies if I dont come across as being very 'MSO aware'. But ive had a read of most of your posts with regards to NZ med schools, and I cant seem to find answers to a few questions I have. Ive also tried emailing Uni auckland to see if they can help, but they seem to get confused lol.

Well anyway here are my questions..hope you guys can help me out!

1) Ive completed a Bachelor Of Medical Sciences degree from the University of Wollongong last year with an honours class 1 grade. I'm not too sure how the University of Auckland (the uni which i quite like personally) calculated GPAs for Australian applicants, as they seem to say a GPA of 6 on a 9 point scale is required for consideration for NZ applicants (BUT NO MENTION ON AUSSIES!). But Aussies are seen to be as locals too?

2) And by reading the website, they seem to say for graduates that the GPA is calculated over the last 2 years of full time study, however I was wondering whether this is done once we meet the minimum overall threshold or whether this is just how GPA calculation is done full stop for graduates?

3) And lastly, how important is their questionnaire?

Sorry to bombard you guys with questions, but any help would be much appreciated! And again good luck with everything..brilliant website!

I just had a look at the website, and it does have 'New Zealand university' in bold, which seems strange, I would think they would take graduates with overseas degrees though. I'm pretty sure there is at least one in my year. But I would probably check with the administrations office just in case. I know in terms of fees, that you are classed as a local, and only pay as much as any NZer.

Not too sure about the GPA thing either. But my interpretation is that 6.0 is across the entire degree. If you pass that test, then they only rank you on your last 2 years. Its sort of analogous to undergrad entry, where you have to get B+ across 8 papers, but once you get that, only 4 are used in the end for ranking.

You mean the MH03? Thats pretty important, I'd put a bit of effort into that. Thats the only thing that the interviewers get to see before the interview, so a good MH03 will give them a good impression of you even before you walk in. They use the MH03 to base some of their questions on, so its a good way to direct them to things you want asked about.
 
Hey,

I'm doing CIE at the moment and have one year of high school left. I'm thinking of taking Biomed in the first year but am kinda worried about Physics 160. How hard is it? I haven't taken physics before and I'm planning on doing AS physics next year. Will that be enough for me to be able to keep up? I wouldn't mind if makes me work hard during the year but I guess it's just a matter of if I actually would be able to do it or not

Btw I'm doing A level math, bio nd chem
 
Hey,

I'm doing CIE at the moment and have one year of high school left. I'm thinking of taking Biomed in the first year but am kinda worried about Physics 160. How hard is it? I haven't taken physics before and I'm planning on doing AS physics next year. Will that be enough for me to be able to keep up? I wouldn't mind if makes me work hard during the year but I guess it's just a matter of if I actually would be able to do it or not

Btw I'm doing A level math, bio nd chem

I wouldn't worry too much about Physics 160. Its based on people having about a 6th form level of physics, since its mainly geared towards bio students anyway. Physics 160 isnt one of the core courses that is counted for entry into medicine, so it really doesn't matter at all, except that you have to get B+ average across all your courses. Theres absolutely no reason you couldn't get a B+. The first half of the course is like simple mechanics (like F=ma, and v^2 = u^ + 2as, sorta thing), and electricity at about 6th form level. If you really don't want to do physics, then you can go through health sci.
 
I just had a look at the website, and it does have 'New Zealand university' in bold, which seems strange, I would think they would take graduates with overseas degrees though. I'm pretty sure there is at least one in my year. But I would probably check with the administrations office just in case. I know in terms of fees, that you are classed as a local, and only pay as much as any NZer.

Not too sure about the GPA thing either. But my interpretation is that 6.0 is across the entire degree. If you pass that test, then they only rank you on your last 2 years. Its sort of analogous to undergrad entry, where you have to get B+ across 8 papers, but once you get that, only 4 are used in the end for ranking.

You mean the MH03? Thats pretty important, I'd put a bit of effort into that. Thats the only thing that the interviewers get to see before the interview, so a good MH03 will give them a good impression of you even before you walk in. They use the MH03 to base some of their questions on, so its a good way to direct them to things you want asked about.

Hey thanks for that mate. Much appreciated. Interestingly, ive got an email from admissions and they say that they'lll only be looking at the final 2 years of the degree for GPA calculations (including postgrad etc). So thats pretty good for me i guess. But the website makes it sound really confusing! And I guess I'm going to have to put some effort in for the MH03. Again, thanks mate!
 
Hey,

I'm doing CIE at the moment and have one year of high school left. I'm thinking of taking Biomed in the first year but am kinda worried about Physics 160. How hard is it? I haven't taken physics before and I'm planning on doing AS physics next year. Will that be enough for me to be able to keep up? I wouldn't mind if makes me work hard during the year but I guess it's just a matter of if I actually would be able to do it or not

Btw I'm doing A level math, bio nd chem

I didn't do any physics at IGCSE/AS/A2 level prior to taking physics 160 in my first year lol (the last physics i ever did was IGCSE combined science in 4th form). I ended up with an A+ in the paper anyways. If you have some sort of maths background then it isn't hard. Plus, physics is very logical
 
Hey,

I'm doing CIE at the moment and have one year of high school left. I'm thinking of taking Biomed in the first year but am kinda worried about Physics 160. How hard is it? I haven't taken physics before and I'm planning on doing AS physics next year. Will that be enough for me to be able to keep up? I wouldn't mind if makes me work hard during the year but I guess it's just a matter of if I actually would be able to do it or not

Btw I'm doing A level math, bio nd chem

Hah your probably the guy i was talking to at careers evening. If its you, I should've been clearer with my answer sorry (we had a tight schedule). You can probably get away with AS physics. I have a friend who's never ever done physics before but still ended up with A+ (he had to work hard though). Also have friends who got B in AS physics and ended up with A+. Reason why I recommended doing A lvl physics as well was for:
1) applying to aussie med schools
2) you can kind of cruise through physics 160

But don't worry too much, if you do the work, you can get A+ and its not one of the 4 papers that count towards med.
 
About UMAT section 3, is there type 1 questions (ie they give a giant box with lots of shapes and ask you to identify a particular shape in the box) in the test?
Our chem results are out. Mmmm didn;t think it was so soon. When will the biosci/poplhlth come out?

Thanx &wish everyone a relaxiing holiday!
 
Holiday is surely sweet!

Mayo about your question, i sort of know what you're talking about. I think it won't be in the test. I saw them in some older papers but not in the 2009 booklets i bought from the official UMAT org. so it would be reasonable to assume that they won't appear in our test. But then again i can't be 100% sure.

3 results are out, just poplhlth to go. They always seem to take the longest lol.

Hope everyone is still enjoying the holidays! Uni starts in 2 weeks hohoho
 
pop health results usually take ages to come out. Don't expect them till the last week of the holidays I say. Part of the problem is that the 111 exam takes the longest to mark with all it's long answers

you guys are lucky to have a holiday haha. I don't have a break till sept 21. Have a 16 week block at the moment. I want to ski damnit! I want to AMSA too curse general medicine haha
 
ppl say even getting into the biomed (1st year) course is real hard. bt honestly, hw many ppl out of the ppl hu r accepted hav the full 360 ucas points? or is it so intense that every1 hu applies has the full 360 nd they hav to start ranking them on their raw mark?
 
ppl say even getting into the biomed (1st year) course is real hard. bt honestly, hw many ppl out of the ppl hu r accepted hav the full 360 ucas points? or is it so intense that every1 hu applies has the full 360 nd they hav to start ranking them on their raw mark?

Hi quirino. I've heard of that rumour before but don't be too worried about it because it is just a mere rumour. 1st year biomed is very easy to get in, everyone i knew who wanted to do biomed got in. I don't know anyone who failed to get in...

I knew some people in my year with C average in their CIE results got into 1st year biomed. I doubt the requirements have changed much in these 2 years.
 
Hello, first time poster :)

For Otago competitive graduate entry, is a umat over the 25 percentile all you need as a "threshold" then they rank you according to your gpa?

I got s1: 48 s2: 48 s3: 48 in 2008 (about 40-45 percentile for each)

which is pretty bad :(

but the 25th percentile requirement seemed to be pretty low compared to the umat scores required for entry via the HSFY pathway so just wanted to double check...



ppl say even getting into the biomed (1st year) course is real hard. bt honestly, hw many ppl out of the ppl hu r accepted hav the full 360 ucas points? or is it so intense that every1 hu applies has the full 360 nd they hav to start ranking them on their raw mark?

you don't have to worry too much
my friend got A B C D and still got in
there probably won't be >300 people who got all A grades in their A levels
 
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