Discussion: State and University-based Selection Bias

[Mana]

EtA: This^ needs to be read with the context that the federal gov has allocated med quotas roughly proportional to state population.

If the ratios are proportional and the universities state-lock their candidates then any given candidate from any given state has the same relative chance of getting in; the decision is made not of how many applicants to select but how to select them. Right now we have methods using numerical values (including interview score) that are easy to "standardise" between applicants for the purpose of selection.

From working in the medical field for a few years now it is pretty apparent to me that there are some shortages in specific specialties that need to be addressed and for which there are some personality traits that it appears very much are selected against. For example, I am told about 50% of psychiatry registrar positions in the state are unfilled (don't quote me on this). I wouldn't necessarily suggest that all psychiatrists have this quality, but it very much appears to me that you need a lot of patience to be able to do this job (by virtue of how assessment and management occurs in this specialty) and since we are selecting lots of Type A personalities for medicine (indirectly, by selecting those with high marks) we aren't selecting for this particular shortfall.

Potentially there could be some basis for this selection at the applicant level. I refer to the old undergraduate University of Melbourne selection criteria as an example of a system that could work; they used to have a "UMAT" pathway, an "ATAR (or ENTER)" pathway, and a mixed pathway. Qualifying through any of these pathways would grant a place.

Long story short, I am completely not in favour of all universities using the same entry pathway because we need more diversity in medicine, not less, and this is because each area of need requires different skillsets. While I am not necessarily in favour of any specific selection criteria (and there are necessarily shortcomings of specific ones, for example, the graduate entry pathways producing doctors who are older on average when they commence and thus hypothetically able to be in the workforce for fewer years), there is always a place for diversity in selection, and that is the hypothetical outcome of diversity in the cohort that is selected.

 

[A1]

In seriousness, this comes back to our discussion in another thread about selection criteria needing to be the same in each state for it to be "fair game" - it's not fair to exclude Victorian applicants with strong UCAT scores but inadequate ATARs for Monash, from being able to get into the JMP (though you're completely correct that their requirements are significantly lower than other interstate applicants).

Your point focuses on the *subset* of Vic students who don't meet Monash criteria but meet JMP criteria. To me that's of secondary importance. I look at a higher level - in that on the whole spectrum NSW students & Vic students have equal access to JMP, whereas Vic students have access to 210 out of 240 Monash places while NSW students can only access 30 out of 240. That's where the bigger unfairness exists.

 

[Crow]

Your point focuses on the *subset* of Vic students who don't meet Monash criteria but meet JMP criteria. To me that's of secondary importance. I look at a higher level - in that on the whole spectrum NSW students & Vic students have equal access to JMP, whereas Vic students have access to 210 out of 240 Monash places while NSW students can only access 30 out of 240. That's where the bigger unfairness exists.

I don't disagree with that, but two wrongs don't make a right! I don't agree with the justification of "we can discriminate against them because they're a smaller subset and the other uni is even worse!" personally.

 

[A1]

I don't disagree with that, but two wrongs don't make a right!

While the party that participates in the first wrong continually makes no attempt to change their way I don't give two hoots about the line two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Lawrencealot actually, here it is!! I forgot it got its own thread!!

 

[Layla_a]

genuinely curious what reason theyre going to provide

View attachment 3865

I guess we will find out. Doubt I'll get a real response considering they don't owe me an explanation, and its not like im going to take them to court over the issue. Also its not like your going to see any South Australians complaining about the advantages

EDIT: I would send one to Monash but i think its a little tone deaf to argue against that any advantage Victorian's may get this year

interesting that you never wrote an email to any of the other unis in the past few years that said they prioritise local students before adelaide even did

 

[Layla_a]

Honestly, I don’t care how they justify it. The only reasonable basis for doing this is to address a workforce shortage in the state, which to the best of my knowledge, South Australia doesn’t have. Moves taken like this are inequitable, plain and simple.

there is a shortage of doctors working in SA so the best of your knowledge needs work

 

[A1]

there is a shortage of doctors working in SA

Just two years ago the SA gov almost defaulted on their COAG commitment to provide internships for *all* SA domestic graduates, because the SA med schools were producing too many. Adelaide intakes were cut from 170 to 120 for a few years (have now "recovered" to 140).

 

[Layla_a]

If the ratios are proportional and the universities state-lock their candidates then any given candidate from any given state has the same relative chance of getting in; the decision is made not of how many applicants to select but how to select them. Right now we have methods using numerical values (including interview score) that are easy to "standardise" between applicants for the purpose of selection.

From working in the medical field for a few years now it is pretty apparent to me that there are some shortages in specific specialties that need to be addressed and for which there are some personality traits that it appears very much are selected against. For example, I am told about 50% of psychiatry registrar positions in the state are unfilled (don't quote me on this). I wouldn't necessarily suggest that all psychiatrists have this quality, but it very much appears to me that you need a lot of patience to be able to do this job (by virtue of how assessment and management occurs in this specialty) and since we are selecting lots of Type A personalities for medicine (indirectly, by selecting those with high marks) we aren't selecting for this particular shortfall.

Potentially there could be some basis for this selection at the applicant level. I refer to the old undergraduate University of Melbourne selection criteria as an example of a system that could work; they used to have a "UMAT" pathway, an "ATAR (or ENTER)" pathway, and a mixed pathway. Qualifying through any of these pathways would grant a place.

Long story short, I am completely not in favour of all universities using the same entry pathway because we need more diversity in medicine, not less, and this is because each area of need requires different skillsets. While I am not necessarily in favour of any specific selection criteria (and there are necessarily shortcomings of specific ones, for example, the graduate entry pathways producing doctors who are older on average when they commence and thus hypothetically able to be in the workforce for fewer years), there is always a place for diversity in selection, and that is the hypothetical outcome of diversity in the cohort that is selected.

Yes but by Adelaide increasing their quota of SA students Interviewed to 400 Aren’t they technically increasing diversity? As usually all SA students interview get an offer there due to the high proportion of interstate students knocking it back (who take majority of the interview positions??) so therefore the SA students getting an offer (4th rounds etc) didn’t particularly excel in the interview or have the personality and skills they were looking for?

 

[Crow]

there is a shortage of doctors working in SA so the best of your knowledge needs work

Do you have an official source to back this up? It’s news to me - I’d genuinely love to learn about it if you are willing to provide more info than a couple of snarky comments.

 

[dotwingz]

interesting that you never wrote an email to any of the other unis in the past few years that said they prioritise local students before adelaide even did

No university has published so confidently that such quotas are against the law and then gone back on what they said. I believe I said here somewhere that I would send a similar one to Monash if it wasnt so tone deaf to do so given Victorian students extremely difficult year.

there is a shortage of doctors working in SA so the best of your knowledge needs work

You seem to have a simplistic knowledge on the entire training pathway. The idea that more medical school places = more doctors in rural areas, is incredibly over simplified. Medical school does not make up the lionshare of time involved in the full training of a doctor, with pre vocational post graduate training requiring 2 years, and training schemes requiring typically 5+ years, not including the years you will probably need to spend as an unaccredited reg building up the CV to get onto the training scheme.

https://www.amsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/160107-InternCrisisOpenLetter.pdf

Any doctor shortage in South Australia can not be largely attributed to medical school numbers. They produce more medical students then they can handle and have nearly been unable to uphold training obligations in their state. Flinders university graduate entry is incredibly focused towards current flinders students, essentially primarly selecting Adelaide residents. If UAdel prioritises SA school leavers that would make South Australia the most interstate discriminatory state, given that in Victoria, at least UniMelb or Deakin doesnt discriminate to the best of my knowledge.

This is an image from the Health Workforce locator map showing priority areas for GPs, metropolitan South Australia (i.e. Adelaide) has sufficient GPs working there but its a different story for rural areas. If we look a little closer on the training pathways for GPs in South Australia we will be able to see why

https://webcache.googleusercontent....&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-b-d

From this RDASA report, we can see that SA is falling behind states like Queensland and NSW when it comes to offering a well-supported Rural Generalist training pathway, and that SA is losing junior doctors - some of whom want to become our future rural doctors - to other states, because they can access the training they need there.

Generally, the governments of Australia and the speciality training colleges found that doctors will move to the places of the most opportunity. Which has been the driving mentality behind the increasing integration of rural exposure in GP training, and the establishment of what the government coins a 'rural training pipeline' to build local training capacity.

 

[Layla_a]

No university has published so confidently that such quotas are against the law and then gone back on what they said. I believe I said here somewhere that I would send a similar one to Monash if it wasnt so tone deaf to do so given Victorian students extremely difficult year.

Regardless of who put out the statement saying it was unconstitutional, it would just make sense that you would email the other unis to ask why they were engaging in preferential treatment. Seems like you are only doing so when it disadvantages you... which is extremely unfair considering South Australians are disadvantaged in virtually every other uni/ state aside from a few... so using ur concept of “victorians have had a tough year as it is” we could also say south Australians are disadvantaged... and therefore “deserve” to be prioritised IN THEIR OWN STATE when the interstate students quite literally steal the interviews just to have uni Adelaide as a back up option and then reject the offer... interstaters were abusing the system... (this is from an interstater btw)

 

[dotwingz]

Regardless of who put out the statement saying it was unconstitutional, it would just make sense that you would email the other unis to ask why they were engaging in preferential treatment. Seems like you are only doing so when it disadvantages you... which is extremely unfair considering South Australians are disadvantaged in virtually every other uni/ state aside from a few... so using ur concept of “victorians have had a tough year as it is” we could also say south Australians are disadvantaged... and therefore “deserve” to be prioritised IN THEIR OWN STATE when the interstate students quite literally steal the interviews just to have uni Adelaide as a back up option and then reject the offer... interstaters were abusing the system... (this is from an interstater btw)

I have no horse in the race, I am not applying to the University of Adelaide and am happily enrolled in the University of Queensland. Last year, as an applicant from NSW who was not GWS, I had no preferential treatment based on location. Like I said before, Flinders primarily select current Flinders students, unlike usyd or uow (the two graduate entry schools of NSW), so one could argue that NSW students actually have it worse?

But this isn't a game of what about-isms, this is what is considered fair and equitable. Interstate students don't steal interviews, they earn them. Universities are funded by the commonwealth, and as a resident of the commonwealth you should be equally treated by all the universities we all fund through tax. South Australian students are not owed a place by South Australian institutions, much like how any other student is not owed a medical place in their home state.

If the students blocking local students from getting interviews is your problem, why not set up a standardised admissions process like GEMSAS instead needlessly discriminating the rest of the population from applying fairly. It prevents interviewing the same students mutliple times across institutions and wasting everyones time and effort. There are better ways of dealing with problems

EDIT: You should also be a little more considerate to Victorians, I think your underplaying how damaging this year has been, just brushing off that SA's have it worse because of some pedantic reason

 

[maybeobsessed]

OHHH yes. Thank you. That's so unfair ((

Is it that unfair? Other unis (CQU, Monash, Adelaide) preference candidates from particular states.

 

[Nonstandard983]

Is it that unfair? Other unis (CQU, Monash, Adelaide) preference candidates from particular states.

Look, I think the university can do whatever they want tbh as long as they are transparent which it looks like CSU has been here.

(for reference I am non-standard and from WA however I did receive an interview)

 

[SmoothCriminal]

Is it that unfair? Other unis (CQU, Monash, Adelaide) preference candidates from particular states.

In that regard, I think QLDers would be the most disadvantaged as every other state has at least one university that preferences its locals. For eg, UAdel, CSU, WSU (to some extent), however there is no uni in QLD that preferences locals. CQU does not actually preferences locals (it was just an assertions made through the invites received by MSO members, which is not completely representative).

 

[Nonstandard983]

In that regard, I think QLDers would be the most disadvantaged as every other state has at least one university that preferences its locals. For eg, UAdel, CSU, WSU (to some extent), however there is no uni in QLD that preferences locals. CQU does not actually preferences locals (it was just an assertions made through the invites received by MSO members, which is not completely representative).

What about non-standards?

 

[Scrivo_72]

In that regard, I think QLDers would be the most disadvantaged as every other state has at least one university that preferences its locals. For eg, UAdel, CSU, WSU (to some extent), however there is no uni in QLD that preferences locals. CQU does not actually preferences locals (it was just an assertions made through the invites received by MSO members, which is not completely representative).

JCU preferences QLDs

 

[SmoothCriminal]

JCU preferences QLDs

It does?? I don't think it does for medicine.

 

[Scrivo_72]

It does?? I don't think it does for medicine.

it does, cant remember where i found the info though