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Graduate Entry Medicine Advice Requests

Nicole563

Member
Thank you for your reply, I was hoping that was the case!

So if Griffith University says this...

For completed Bachelor degrees, the GPA will be calculated using the GEMSAS grading schema and will be calculated over the final three years of full-time study.

Will my 1 year part time and two years full time suffice?

Thanks heaps for your time...
 

Q3

Regular Member
Thank you for your reply, I was hoping that was the case!

So if Griffith University says this...

For completed Bachelor degrees, the GPA will be calculated using the GEMSAS grading schema and will be calculated over the final three years of full-time study.

Will my 1 year part time and two years full time suffice?

Thanks heaps for your time...

So long as your bachelor's degree will be finished before starting grad med everything will be fine. I am presuming you will finish your degree by mid 2019? In your case if you get an offer it would be unconditional because the GPA you would be applying with is your final one.
 
Hello

I have a bachelor of nursing but I am ashamed of my grades. I have put the bare minimum into my undergrad, only cared about passing and working fulltime hours on top of the fulltime study load. As a result, I have a few fails and lots of passes on my transcript. I have worked as a nurse for 2 years and now have been thinking about a career in medicine.

I am considering 3 options to fix the GPA issue:

1. Study an undergraduate bachelor of paramedicine, it will be a 1 or 1.5 year degree (some subjects are credited from my nursing qualification) + honours year
2. Study a graduate diploma in nursing, it will be a 1 year course
3. study a masters of nursing, it will be a 2 year degree

From these options which would be the smartest way to go? How would the credit transfer impact the overal gpa calculation?

Regards
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
Hello

I have a bachelor of nursing but I am ashamed of my grades. I have put the bare minimum into my undergrad, only cared about passing and working fulltime hours on top of the fulltime study load. As a result, I have a few fails and lots of passes on my transcript. I have worked as a nurse for 2 years and now have been thinking about a career in medicine.

I am considering 3 options to fix the GPA issue:

1. Study an undergraduate bachelor of paramedicine, it will be a 1 or 1.5 year degree (some subjects are credited from my nursing qualification) + honours year
2. Study a graduate diploma in nursing, it will be a 1 year course
3. study a masters of nursing, it will be a 2 year degree

From these options which would be the smartest way to go? How would the credit transfer impact the overal gpa calculation?

Regards
Welcome to MSO :)

I will respond under the assumption that you're planning to apply for graduate entry medicine through the GEMSAS system. Please correct me if not.

From these options:

1. Your GPA for graduate entry medicine is going to be calculated using units from your nursing degree if you do this, so I wager that unless the grades are not as bad as you say they are, this won't fix your GPA issue entirely. All GEMSAS schools will calculate GPA using 3 FTE years of study, so in your case your final year GPA would come from your paramedicine degree, the final-1 year GPA would come from a combination of units from your paramedicine and nursing degree (depending on how much you get credited) and the final-2 year GPA would come from units from the nursing degree. Different GEMSAS schools calculate GPA differently (most weight the final study year triple, the final -1 year double and the final -2 year x 1 but some will weight all three years equally; this is an unweighted GPA). I'd refer to the GEMSAS guide for more details about how each specific university calculates GPA: http://gemsas.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2019-Medicine-GEMSAS-Admissions-Guide-v1.4.pdf

2. The only GEMSAS universities that use graduate diplomas in the GPA calculations are UNDS and UNDF (and the other two years are still going to come from the nursing degree) so this isn't going to improve the GPA that much.

3. Only a few universities (I believe Griffith and UWA are two) consider coursework masters degrees for the purposes of graduate entry medicine. If these are applicable to you then it may be a way to go, but limiting yourself to only a few schools is risky unless you actually want to do the masters program on its own merits.

Your alternative options:

- I am not sure if you have sat GAMSAT before. If you achieve highly on GAMSAT, you can apply to USyd and/or UQ (which use a GPA of 5.0 as a hurdle requirement - I am unsure if you currently meet this) which base interview invites solely on GAMSAT score once you've met the GPA hurdle.

- Sit UCAT and apply as a non-standard applicant to the undergraduate schools; JMP and WSU both use GPA solely as a hurdle requirement but as above, I don't know whether you will meet either of these.

- Complete a whole new undergraduate degree which consists of at least 3FTE years of study (i.e. one that doesn't rely on credits from your nursing degree). Ideally you'd do a degree that you actually want to use should you not gain entry into undergraduate/graduate entry medicine (this is the most likely outcome for anyone pursuing medicine entry). If you were to do this, I'd recommend you do it at Flinders if possible to gain entry into their Flinders grads subquota, where the entry requirements are lower than the GEMSAS schools (albeit still competitive).

If you give an indication of what your GPA for each year of your nursing degree was (keeping in mind your GEMSAS GPA will possibly be higher) and whether you are a rural applicant, this will help us give you more informed advice.
 
Welcome to MSO :)

I will respond under the assumption that you're planning to apply for graduate entry medicine through the GEMSAS system. Please correct me if not.

From these options:

1. Your GPA for graduate entry medicine is going to be calculated using units from your nursing degree if you do this, so I wager that unless the grades are not as bad as you say they are, this won't fix your GPA issue entirely. All GEMSAS schools will calculate GPA using 3 FTE years of study, so in your case your final year GPA would come from your paramedicine degree, the final-1 year GPA would come from a combination of units from your paramedicine and nursing degree (depending on how much you get credited) and the final-2 year GPA would come from units from the nursing degree. Different GEMSAS schools calculate GPA differently (most weight the final study year triple, the final -1 year double and the final -2 year x 1 but some will weight all three years equally; this is an unweighted GPA). I'd refer to the GEMSAS guide for more details about how each specific university calculates GPA: http://gemsas.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2019-Medicine-GEMSAS-Admissions-Guide-v1.4.pdf

2. The only GEMSAS universities that use graduate diplomas in the GPA calculations are UNDS and UNDF (and the other two years are still going to come from the nursing degree) so this isn't going to improve the GPA that much.

3. Only a few universities (I believe Griffith and UWA are two) consider coursework masters degrees for the purposes of graduate entry medicine. If these are applicable to you then it may be a way to go, but limiting yourself to only a few schools is risky unless you actually want to do the masters program on its own merits.

Your alternative options:

- I am not sure if you have sat GAMSAT before. If you achieve highly on GAMSAT, you can apply to USyd and/or UQ (which use a GPA of 5.0 as a hurdle requirement - I am unsure if you currently meet this) which base interview invites solely on GAMSAT score once you've met the GPA hurdle.

- Sit UCAT and apply as a non-standard applicant to the undergraduate schools; JMP and WSU both use GPA solely as a hurdle requirement but as above, I don't know whether you will meet either of these.

- Complete a whole new undergraduate degree which consists of at least 3FTE years of study (i.e. one that doesn't rely on credits from your nursing degree). Ideally you'd do a degree that you actually want to use should you not gain entry into undergraduate/graduate entry medicine (this is the most likely outcome for anyone pursuing medicine entry). If you were to do this, I'd recommend you do it at Flinders if possible to gain entry into their Flinders grads subquota, where the entry requirements are lower than the GEMSAS schools (albeit still competitive).

If you give an indication of what your GPA for each year of your nursing degree was (keeping in mind your GEMSAS GPA will possibly be higher) and whether you are a rural applicant, this will help us give you more informed advice.
my gpa is a 3.8 as a result of the 5 fails(looks down in shame), 1 was from first year, rest were from 2nd year then I redid all my 2nd year subjects the following year with no fails since. The last 2 years I have maintained a 4.4 and the final year 4.8

So my understanding is if I study a partial degree with credits, then only the last 3 years are used for the purpose of GPA calculation, is this correct ? Also does honors count as 1 FTE year ? So in that case, would only the final year of my nursing would count for GPA calc ?

Thanks alot for your reply
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
So my understanding is if I study a partial degree with credits, then only the last 3 years are used for the purpose of GPA calculation, is this correct ?
Yes, the most recent 3FTE years of study will be used.
Also does honors count as 1 FTE year ? So in that case, would only the final year of my nursing would count for GPA calc ?
That’s correct - but keep in mind that even if you get straight 7s in the paramedicine degree and first class honours, your weighted GEMSAS GPA will still only be 6.63 and your unweighted GPA would be 6.27 (assuming your final year nursing degree would have a GEMSAS GPA of 4.8; you can use the GPA calculator on the GEMSAS website to confirm this). As a non-rural applicant you’d need a very strong GAMSAT (at least 90th %ile) +/- excellent portfolio (if you plan to apply to UNDA or Wollongong) to score an interview, and subsequently would need a great interview for an offer, with a lower than average GPA.
 
Yes, the most recent 3FTE years of study will be used.
That’s correct - but keep in mind that even if you get straight 7s in the paramedicine degree and first class honours, your weighted GEMSAS GPA will still only be 6.63 and your unweighted GPA would be 6.27 (assuming your final year nursing degree would have a GEMSAS GPA of 4.8; you can use the GPA calculator on the GEMSAS website to confirm this). As a non-rural applicant you’d need a very strong GAMSAT (at least 90th %ile) +/- excellent portfolio (if you plan to apply to UNDA or Wollongong) to score an interview, and subsequently would need a great interview for an offer, with a lower than average GPA.
I am in Melbourne but willing to relocate. On the GEMSAS GPA calculator, I got 5.44 for the final year, 4.93 for -1 year and 3.19 for -2
 

A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
Yes, the most recent 3FTE years of study will be used.

Hypothetical question: say you are enrolled in a degree, no switching no transfer, fail all 8 units in year1, repeat then pass them all in year2, complete the rest in year 3+4. Is your GPA based on the most recent 3FTE years 2+3+4 or does it include all four years?
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
Hypothetical question: say you are enrolled in a degree, no switching no transfer, fail all 8 units in year1, repeat then pass them all in year2, complete the rest in year 3+4. Is your GPA based on the most recent 3FTE years 2+3+4 or does it include all four years?
I'd imagine that depends on what appears on the student's transcript. I believe (though am not 100% sure) that some universities will only allow a student to be awarded a pass grade (i.e. a 4) if they retake a subject they previously failed. If not, I imagine they will just ignore the fail grades and use the 2nd/3rd/4th year grades unless the fail grades are part of the most recent 3FTE years. If someone was in this position I'd recommend they contact GEMSAS to confirm what they'd do.
 

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Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
I am in Melbourne but willing to relocate. On the GEMSAS GPA calculator, I got 5.44 for the final year, 4.93 for -1 year and 3.19 for -2
That's an improvement - hypothetically if you were to achieve straight 7s and a first class honours (obviously this is no easy feat), you'd have a GEMSAS weighted GPA of 6.74, which is probably around the average mark for a non-rural applicant receiving an interview. I'd recommend you sign up for PagingDr and check out the interview and place offer threads to get a better idea of what sort of GPA/GAMSAT combo scores you'll need for each of the different schools. Make sure you do your research before posting there, though.
 

Enora

Lurker
Hi Crow,
I have a similar question regarding graduate entry medicine. I have bachelor degree and master degree of nursing. As an international student when I did my bachelor degree of nursing, I was only required to complete Year 3 nursing as I had a bachelor degree of medicine oversea. I completed my bachelor degree of nursing in 2008 and master degree in 2017 in Newcastle University. I have been working in hospital for years as a RN. I have no idea how can I calculate my GPA. Can you please give me some advice? What part I need to start to prepare if I want to apply a graduate entry medicine. Many thanks.
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
Hi Enora, welcome to MSO. This could get tricky as nearly all of the graduate entry schools (and most of the undergraduate schools as well) require your undergraduate degree to be less than 10 years old - IIRC UWA is one of the only grad schools that doesn’t have this rule. I am not sure whether having the recently completed masters degree allows you to bypass this rule. My recommendation would be to have a read through the GEMSAS guide here: http://gemsas.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2019-Medicine-GEMSAS-Admissions-Guide-v1.4.pdf (keeping in mind this is last years version and the latest one will be released in March this year). Check which universities have the 10 year rule and whether the masters has any effect on this, and then contact GEMSAS via email with any questions you have. I’d also suggest you ask them how they will calculate your GPA, as I know grade calculation from overseas universities can be complicated with GEMSAS.

Apologies I can’t help more, but I haven’t come across anyone in this situation.

I also recommend you sign up for the PagingDr forum - it is much more focused on graduate entry medicine than we are so you’re more likely to come across someone who’s been in a similar situation to you there.

ETA: Once you’ve heard back from GEMSAS please let me know what the reply is and I’m happy to offer any advice to you if I can.
 
Hi,
I'm an NZ student thinking of applying for an Aussie uni for post grad entry into med.
I think I am capable of getting a decent GPA though am worried about achieving a good enough GAMSAT score as UMAT was my let down into NZ med in 2018.
I was wondering if someone could suggest a few Aussie uni's which puts more emphasis on GPA and less on GAMSAT? Perhaps some uni's tend to have lower GAMSAT score thresholds, and weights GPA more heavily?
Thanks in advance! :)
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Hi Enora, welcome to MSO. This could get tricky as nearly all of the graduate entry schools (and most of the undergraduate schools as well) require your undergraduate degree to be less than 10 years old - IIRC UWA is one of the only grad schools that doesn’t have this rule. I am not sure whether having the recently completed masters degree allows you to bypass this rule. My recommendation would be to have a read through the GEMSAS guide here: http://gemsas.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2019-Medicine-GEMSAS-Admissions-Guide-v1.4.pdf (keeping in mind this is last years version and the latest one will be released in March this year). Check which universities have the 10 year rule and whether the masters has any effect on this, and then contact GEMSAS via email with any questions you have. I’d also suggest you ask them how they will calculate your GPA, as I know grade calculation from overseas universities can be complicated with GEMSAS.

Apologies I can’t help more, but I haven’t come across anyone in this situation.

I also recommend you sign up for the PagingDr forum - it is much more focused on graduate entry medicine than we are so you’re more likely to come across someone who’s been in a similar situation to you there.

ETA: Once you’ve heard back from GEMSAS please let me know what the reply is and I’m happy to offer any advice to you if I can.

Can confirm from personal experience that your 2017 Masters degree ticks off the recency of study requirements and negates the 10 year rule, Enora. However, most grad Med universities will still use your bachelor of nursing GPA, despite its completion date. Only UWA, UQ, and one more... it might have been Griffith, said they would disregard my bachelor and give me a GPA 7.00 based on my completed doctorate.

Given you’ve studied at Newcastle before, I’d seriously also be considering JMP. It’s 5 years, not 4, but they will use your Masters GPA and so it opens up another ~170 places for you to potentially access. And if you’re doing UCAT anyway, you might as well throw WSU an application, they’ll also use your masters.
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
I was wondering if someone could suggest a few Aussie uni's which puts more emphasis on GPA and less on GAMSAT? Perhaps some uni's tend to have lower GAMSAT score thresholds, and weights GPA more heavily?
Hello :) Please take a read through the GEMSAS guide here; the weighting that each university gives to GPA or GAMSAT are listed in the guide. http://gemsas.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2019-Medicine-GEMSAS-Admissions-Guide-v1.4.pdf

Please note that the GEMSAS guide for future years is yet to be released and schools may change the weighting that they apply to each criterion for future admissions cycles. One change that is coming this year is that UQ is re-introducing interviews into their admissions process, so this will most likely lower the GAMSAT cutoff required.

No schools have ever weighted GPA higher than GAMSAT (in fact, some do the opposite and release interviews solely on the basis of GAMSAT result). However, some have lower requirements than others to receive an interview.

Wollongong and Notre Dame both use a portfolio as part of their admissions criteria, meaning that less of a weighting is placed on GAMSAT and GPA. Wollongong do not use GAMSAT or GPA at all when making place offers after the interview stage, and Notre Dame no longer releases the weightings that they give to each criterion (I personally believe that they’ve either completely excluded GPA and GAMSAT from the place offer stage or at least placed a higher weighting on interview and portfolio score, but that’s just speculation from me). Generally the portfolio scores have a wider range of GPA/GAMSAT scores that applicants receive an interview with, due to the portfolio also making up a significant component of the selection criteria.

I wouldn’t rule yourself out with GAMSAT just yet. I’ve sat both the GAMSAT and the UMAT and can tell you that while they assess similar themes, it is definitely possible to do better on one than the other and I personally performed better in GAMSAT than UMAT. I think significant improvements between sittings of GAMSAT are much more achievable than those in UMAT, too.

I’d also recommend you sign up for PagingDr and take a look at the past offer forums there to get an idea of what sort of GPA or GAMSAT combo that you’d need to be competitive, as well as get some solid tips with GAMSAT.

If you’re a NZ citizen this makes you ineligible for BMP places which unfortunately excludes you from a significant portion of places that other applicants have access to; this means that you’ll need to perform higher than the average Australian applicant needs to to have a reasonable chance at admission.

Good luck :)
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
it might have been Griffith
Can confirm Griffith awards PhD and Masters by Research holders an automatic 7.0 (7.0 per year of masters completed for those with masters by research degrees) and they also consider masters by coursework grades in GPA calculations as well.
 
If you’re a NZ citizen this makes you ineligible for BMP places which unfortunately excludes you from a significant portion of places that other applicants have access to; this means that you’ll need to perform higher than the average Australian applicant needs to to have a reasonable chance at admission.
Crow, thank you very much for the info!
I was wondering if you could also confirm if it's true that an A- in all my Otago papers was enough to get the highest Aussie grade score possible, so an A or A+ will not increase my grade score?
If not, and I require an A+ in all my papers, is it enough to simply get an A+ (90% and above) GPA, or if my specific percentage in my papers matter (e.g if a 90% will be a lot worse than a 98%)?
 

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Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
Crow, thank you very much for the info!
I was wondering if you could also confirm if it's true that an A- in all my Otago papers was enough to get the highest Aussie grade score possible, so an A or A+ will not increase my grade score?
If not, and I require an A+ in all my papers, is it enough to simply get an A+ (90% and above) GPA, or if my specific percentage in my papers matter (e.g if a 90% will be a lot worse than a 98%)?
See my post here: Quick Questions Thread #2: 2018-2019 If your university records percentage scores on your academic transcript then GEMSAS will use those instead of the letter grades - anything above 80% is awarded a 7.0 in the eyes of GEMSAS.

ETA: To actually answer your question, no, there is no difference between an A- and an A+ for the purposes of GEMSAS GPA calculation, so as long as you’re in this range the percentage grade won’t matter.
 
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Enora

Lurker
Hi Crow,Thanks very much for your info!

Can confirm from personal experience that your 2017 Masters degree ticks off the recency of study requirements and negates the 10 year rule, Enora. However, most grad Med universities will still use your bachelor of nursing GPA, despite its completion date. Only UWA, UQ, and one more... it might have been Griffith, said they would disregard my bachelor and give me a GPA 7.00 based on my completed doctorate.

Given you’ve studied at Newcastle before, I’d seriously also be considering JMP. It’s 5 years, not 4, but they will use your Masters GPA and so it opens up another ~170 places for you to potentially access. And if you’re doing UCAT anyway, you might as well throw WSU an application, they’ll also use your masters.
Hi LMG, thanks very much for your info! Does JMP requires GAMSAT?
 
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Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
Does JMP requires GAMSAT?
Nope, it requires UCAT as of 2019 though. About Us | UCAT Consortium

I definitely agree with LMG!'s suggestion for you to sit UCAT and apply to the JMP as well as other undergraduate schools that take non-standard applications - WSU, UNSW and Curtin accept non-standard applications and require UCAT, while JCU and Bond do not. The JCU admissions process depends on a written application, though, and Bond is highly dependent on financial status. Applying via both undergraduate and graduate entry will ultimately increase your chances of getting into medical school.
 

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