General Interview Discussion and Questions - 2021 Entry

[Crow]

so I'm guessing that's only 2 bonus points then.

Unfortunately it probably would be - your best bet at this stage would be to aim for JMP (I’d be starting interview prep ASAP as you’ll need a top performance in the interview to land a place offer). Otherwise, you’ve got non-standard and graduate entry as options further down the line if JMP doesn’t work out this year.

 

[ucatboy]

Understood, bit oof but it is what it is obviously.



Thanks for the information, I did do a LOTE (French) at IB, but not Mathematics C (only did IB Maths at SL), so I'm guessing that's only 2 bonus points then.

Do you have the option to retake a couple subjects in November along with the rest of the Australian peeps? That could bring up your ATAR a fair bit, especially if you were fked over by IB's predictive grading algorithm for May 2020.

 

[yihola7542]

Unfortunately it probably would be - your best bet at this stage would be to aim for JMP (I’d be starting interview prep ASAP as you’ll need a top performance in the interview to land a place offer). Otherwise, you’ve got non-standard and graduate entry as options further down the line if JMP doesn’t work out this year.

I get the feeling that probably the most likely option (esp with the grades that I got) would end up being graduate entry (or non-standard if I end up being particularly miserable in whatever I end up doing in uni). Thanks for the advice though guys.

Do you have the option to retake a couple subjects in November along with the rest of the Australian peeps? That could bring up your ATAR a fair bit, especially if you were fked over by IB's predictive grading algorithm for May 2020.

I don't think I do because my school was in Hong Kong and they never gave us any options to retake in that school, also I can't leave Australia for the foreseeable future for obvious reasons. I also dk if any IB school in Australia would let me enrol to retake exams, so in conclusion I don't think I have that option.
Also I'm gonna be honest on this forum, I wasn't that fked over by the predictive grading algorithm (many of my classmates were however). I just didn't have a great last 2 years in high school and I can't rly blame anyone for that.

 

[Breg]

(I’d be starting interview prep ASAP as you’ll need a top performance in the interview to land a place offer).

Is this general advice based on the competitiveness of JMP places or specified advice for this person's circumstances?

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Is this general advice based on the competitiveness of JMP places or specified advice for this person's circumstances?

General advice. JMP offers are based 100% on MSA and PQA performance and they interview approximately 4-5 x more people than they have spaces for. A ‘good’ interview isn’t ‘good enough’, you need to be in the top ~20-25% for a first round offer.

 

[flower16157]

*im not sure if this post belongs in this thread, feel free to remove i just didnt know where else to post it*

so im from qld and because this year is the first year of atar, my school has chosen to not give out predicted atars. this has made it tricky to sort of estimate what atar i should be expecting because ive been told the online atar calculators are really dodgy and not to use them.
i know everyones atar is different based of things like scaling/cohorts etc, but could someone just give me a general guess as to what grades i should be getting to get an atar 98-99?? like all A+, As or what?
its just because i dont want to put down all my qtac preferences as med if i dont even have a chance :/
thanks in advance!

 

[A1]

could someone just give me a general guess as to what grades i should be getting to get an atar 98-99?? like all A+, As or what?

ATAR in the end is a ranking the same as OP was. A general guess is what were needed for OP2 will approximately be for 98+, OP1 for 99+.

 

[Breg]

General advice. JMP offers are based 100% on MSA and PQA performance and they interview approximately 4-5 x more people than they have spaces for. A ‘good’ interview isn’t ‘good enough’, you need to be in the top ~20-25% for a first round offer.

Just like a 'good' UCAT score isn't 'good enough'

 

[dotwingz]

There is an ATARnotes calculator for QCE, although no scaling data exists its kinda helpful for seeing what kind of marks you might need to be around. I put my NSW HSC marks in for the equivalent QCE subjects and I got +- 0.7 of my Actual ATAR so it seems somewhat alright

*im being purposely low modal here because this calculator is going to be incredibly rough

Although you should be putting med in your QTAC either way, no harm is done by doing so. If youre running out of preferences maybe leave griffith out if youre not confident you'll get a mid/high 99 ATAR

QCE ATAR Calculator

qce.atarcalc.com

 

[Nardwuar]

Amazing Score!!! Did you score interviews with your score last year? Last year you still performed incredibly well!

Last year I received interview offers for all the unis I applied to except WSU, because my VR score was too low

 

[Tomato]

Under the condition of Covid-19, do you think the interviews will be held as the past years?

 

[Eleanor Rigby]

A couple of different speculative scenarios:
Temperature check on everyone, a lot of masks and hand sanitisers. Questionaires on "have you been having these symptoms lately" etc
A lot of shouting because of social distancing. Just kidding. Really who knows.

 

[Tomato]

A couple of different speculative scenarios:
Temperature check on everyone, a lot of masks and hand sanitisers. Questionaires on "have you been having these symptoms lately" etc
A lot of shouting because of social distancing. Just kidding. Really who knows.

I think may use online interview just like they interview the international applicants.

 

[RTorrnce]

UQ has already said interviews are all online from the MMI info page on their website

 

[yihola7542]

1) Reading through the 2020 interview invites thread, I noticed that some WSU top-up interview offers were given by phone. If one were to miss the phone call, does that mean they would not get a top-up interview offer? (I know I asked a similar question in another thread but that one was about course offers and not interview offers)

2) Again from last year's interview invites thread, I know that JMP, WSU, and UAdel only consider UCAT for their interview offers. As someone who already has their (by the standards of non-rural non-GWS medical applicants, not very good) Year 12 results, will these results also be seen/considered by these universities (and used to determine if I get an interview or not) or will they just ignore them and only use my UCAT (I know I've asked about similar things a few times but am still not sure)

 

[A1]

1) Reading through the 2020 interview invites thread, I noticed that some WSU top-up interview offers were given by phone. If one were to miss the phone call, does that mean they would not get a top-up interview offer? (I know I asked a similar question in another thread but that one was about course offers and not interview offers)

The nature of top-up interview invites/place offers is they are quite late in the process so time is of the essence. In my cousin's case she was phoned, told to quit work for the day to go enroll immediately else they would move on to the next applicant (meaning if she had missed the phone call they would've done that). I don't know if they would be as rushed with invites.

Btw you seem particularly concerned about this, any specific reason?

2) Again from last year's interview invites thread, I know that JMP, WSU, and UAdel only consider UCAT for their interview offers. As someone who already has their (by the standards of non-rural non-GWS medical applicants, not very good) Year 12 results, will these results also be seen/considered by these universities (and used to determine if I get an interview or not) or will they just ignore them and only use my UCAT (I know I've asked about similar things a few times but am still not sure)

These three schools generally don't care about your ATAR when selecting for interviews, but there are exceptions. One case I know of was a non-standard interstate applicant who got a JMP invite in November for a 2nd round January interview. But when he rang JMP in January to book an interview slot the JMP person noticed his full-year GPA (which had not been available in Nov) was below the hurdle so denied him one.

In your case with ATAR 95.45 you will get interviews with JMP & Adelaide whether they look or not, since 95.45 meets their hurdle/threshold. For WSU you might get one or you might fall into the JMP exception case above, I can't tell for sure.

 

[yihola7542]

Btw you seem particularly concerned about this, any specific reason?

Just want to make sure I don't get stuff wrong on my part lol, I've missed/narrowly-missed deadlines and opportunities before in high school due to disorganization/carelessness/not knowing that things existed and I'm trying pretty hard to not do that again in the future. Honestly stuff like this might be a source of vague paranoia for me. Thanks for the answer though.

In your case with ATAR 95.45 you will get interviews with JMP & Adelaide whether they look or not, since 95.45 meets their hurdle/threshold. For WSU you might get one or you might fall into the JMP exception case above, I can't tell for sure.

Thanks again, honestly when I got my IB/ATAR I was assuming that wouldn't be a score that got me any interview for medicine so this is already above my expectations (JMP and Adelaide). For WSU I can hope but I won't hold my breath necessarily (I was more optimistic before seeing that I was only 0.05 below the threshold but then I saw that I was 1 below the IB threshold).

One thing about WSU, even if I did get an interview with them, with my IB grade being below their threshold, does that mean they'd not give me an offer even after the interview? Or would they be lenient?

 

[ucatboy]

One thing about WSU, even if I did get an interview with them, with my IB grade being below their threshold, does that mean they'd not give me an offer even after the interview? Or would they be lenient?

I believe their hurdles are pretty firm, meaning that you'll be denied an offer regardless of how spectacular your interview performance is, unfortunately. This means that you should think carefully about whether it is worth the time and flights/accomodation to attend the interview, but I will say that since you're also going to be attending the JMP interview, the WSU interview is good practice for that as both are of the MMI format. At the end of the day, it's up to you.

EDIT: If WSU switches to an online interview format this year, then it will be well worth attending as it's basically free practice.

 

[yihola7542]

This means that you should think carefully about whether it is worth the time and flights/accomodation to attend the interview, but I will say that since you're also going to be attending the JMP interview, the WSU interview is good practice for that as both are of the MMI format. At the end of the day, it's up to you.

I'm already in Sydney so I wouldn't have to spend too much time/money getting to WSU for an interview. I hadn't thought of attending it for practise though lol

 

[A1]

Or would they be lenient?

Adding to ucatboy 's reply I doubt they can be lenient in general, since if they were lenient for 0.05 below what about the 0.10 below i.e. at what point would the leniency stop.

But it may be worth a shot writing to WSU asking for this leniency this year due to COVID disruptions?