[Undergrad] High School Discussion Thread

[Boom]

No, they don't look at predicted results at all. In fact, I received an email from one of them explicitly saying don't send them predicted results lol.
Only grades in SATAC and QTAC. I was told by Monash that my grades weren't good enough,so I am not sure how that works, considering I got 3 A* (VTAC looks at top 3 A levels APPARENTLY).

And yes, you can apply through both. Just go through QTAC imo.

By applying through both do you mean uni will consider our application twice as separate people shall I say? Do Monash mean your percentage or? So basically non of them really looks at your percentage am I correct?

 

[Boom]

If you don't have the result proper you don't get a place it's as simple as that. They won't even consider your application till formal results are out and you forward them your official results. Hence you can never really be considered for a first round offer unless you have taken a gap year

Thus the reason I did some A levels at year 12. Basically there is not much point in my Lit and Chinese exams then since they come end of year 13 so pretty much whether I sit them or not doesn't make a big difference. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Trin]

By applying through both do you mean uni will consider our application twice as separate people shall I say? Do Monash mean your percentage or? So basically non of them really looks at your percentage am I correct?

I am not too sure. I am assuming since QTAC and UAC are separate entities, then maybe you'd be considered twice? I don't think it really matters, since the cutoff for both QTAC and UAC are almost the same anyway +- 0.05ATAR or something.

Maybe. Lots of NZers apply to Monash, and most of them will have 3 A*s. So the only way to differentiate the candidates would be to look at the percentages.

 

[lordgarlic]

Thus the reason I did some A levels at year 12. Basically there is not much point in my Lit and Chinese exams then since they come end of year 13 so pretty much whether I sit them or not doesn't make a big difference. Thanks for your reply.

unless they have changed the rules they used to look at grades from ONE examination session or ONE academic year I believe. So A levels from year 12 don't count when you apply at the end of year 13. Though it has been 7-8 years since I've applied so that may have changed......

 

[Boom]

unless they have changed the rules they used to look at grades from ONE examination session or ONE academic year I believe. So A levels from year 12 don't count when you apply at the end of year 13. Though it has been 7-8 years since I've applied so that may have changed......

Yea most admission centres (at least 4 now) have said that they will look at all your grades including those in year 12, with UAC as the exception where they simply just ignore your year 12 grades and your year 13 grades and therefore not much NZ people got into those uni under UAC.

 

[AusMedRules]

Well this threat has gone pretty far but i would like to ask: are u a med student???have you studied 4 years of med.I DONT THINK SO. do u think i dont no what im talking about. iM ABOUT TO GRADUATE WITH FULL HONOURS. so ive already been through what your about to do.
Just to let u no my friend got 96 in bio, they didnt even look at his application, why would they anyway? that 4% could be the difference between life and death. dont worry if they dont get to see your Alevel marks, theres always IG (my friend had his IG's checked out: math,english sciences)

 

[AusMedRules]

Definitely the sciences.

 

[greenglacier]

Well this threat has gone pretty far but i would like to ask: are u a med student???have you studied 4 years of med.I DONT THINK SO. do u think i dont no what im talking about. iM ABOUT TO GRADUATE WITH FULL HONOURS. so ive already been through what your about to do.
Just to let u no my friend got 96 in bio, they didnt even look at his application, why would they anyway? that 4% could be the difference between life and death. dont worry if they dont get to see your Alevel marks, theres always IG (my friend had his IG's checked out: math,english sciences)

You made a claim, it was rebutted by another member. The fact that you're partway through med school doesn't make your claim more valid.

It's great to see you here at MSO - your experience and knowledge of the system sounds valuable, and it's awesome that you're happy to help out. However, please tone down the language (and use proper grammar), or I will have to consider formal moderation action.

 

[Boom]

Well this threat has gone pretty far but i would like to ask: are u a med student???have you studied 4 years of med.I DONT THINK SO. do u think i dont no what im talking about. iM ABOUT TO GRADUATE WITH FULL HONOURS. so ive already been through what your about to do.
Just to let u no my friend got 96 in bio, they didnt even look at his application, why would they anyway? that 4% could be the difference between life and death. dont worry if they dont get to see your Alevel marks, theres always IG (my friend had his IG's checked out: math,english sciences)

I did not mean to threat you or anything near those lines so please don't get me wrong. I admire and respect your ability to get into med school and is now almost graduating. However, time changes and admission processes may be different from the time you did it and now. Further more, I know several people that did not acquire over 95 in A level and got into med. As I said before, top in the world awards are at 97% normally, and therefore should med schools need 97% for consideration then that requirement is unusually too high.

Again, I did not mean to question you or anything, just simply stating an observed fact. Please don't get mad over this, I did not mean it to be personal.

Further more, this thread of mine have over 600 views and lots of people will be reading this, therefore, what you stated may put off a lot of people that wanted to apply for med. However, I am not saying what you said is false, it may be that way the time you applied for medicine. What I'm trying to say its just it doesn't require that high a score to get into medicine (at least for us nowadays), may be it does for the top schools but definitely not what you said where you said "can't get into any med school if not above 97/98". In fact, lots of schools out there only look at grades and not your actual percentage.

 

[fishymuse]

I'm pretty sure the universities don't look at your percentiles, as the new certificates (since may/june 2011, I believe) do not contain the percentile, only the grade (A*, A, B, etc).

The percentiles are displayed on your statement of results, which you may send to the admission centres if you really want to. However, they explicitly state that only the certified copies of certificates are valid.

Like we've said ealier, UAC only calculate the grades sat in year 13+one from year 12.

Monash is...difficult for the CIE people, as our scores are not converted into an equivalent ATAR (Like NZQA do for the NCEA students), so it is hard for them to compare with the ATAR rankings. Chsal and I both applied with 4A*s and 98%ile UMAT. . . so. . .

The first round interviews at Monash and Adelaide are given out only looking at UMAT scores. Second round looks at UMAT and ATAR. Both are held BEFORE oct/nov year 13 A-level results are released. This may be different for other universities.

 

[Chsal]

Omg a lot happened while I wasn't looking.

Anyway yea like now you sort of need 4 A levels. I don't know if you can make it with 3?
You also need slightly more than 90 %ile UMAT. For example Monash 2012 was 94ish.

https://www.medstudentsonline.com.au/f40/2012-monash-mbbs-interview-discussion-thread-26334/ <- Cutoff around score of 191, 94~%.

Also if you look at previous years both academic and UMAT requirements increase each year. You used to be able to get in medicine with ASs and 85~% UMAT for example.

They will take resits, given you do them in time. Unis will take your 4 best A levels. And only A levels. Not IG, not AS. Haven't heard anything concrete about %s but I highly doubt they would bother.

Basically there is not much point in my Lit and Chinese exams then

It's sort of a "might as well do them" thing. For me I did Lit because I heard Monash "heavily preferenced English (and Chemistry)" so I thought why not. I don't think it ever counted for anything in the end but you never know right? Pick the safe option.

As for Japanese (I took that instead of your Chinese), I enjoyed it so I did it lol.

Plus I didn't like the idea of wasting away half a year. What else are you going to do?

UAC only calculate the grades sat in year 13+one from year 12

Now see the weird thing is... according to that we shouldn't have been able to get second round interviews for UAC. But I managed to get UWS and Newcastle interviews. Over at UWS, I talked to the person in charge of all that stuff and she said "if you've been offered an interview you have met both the academic and UMAT thresholds. At this point only your interview matters in your final placing".

At the same time UAC was telling me (via email) that I DIDN'T meet the thresholds, but dodged the question when I phoned them up.

But in the end I didn't get an offer from UWS anyway so...

Who knows. UAC and the unis contradict each other. You might as well try though, just in case.

 

[Boom]

Omg a lot happened while I wasn't looking.

Anyway yea like now you sort of need 4 A levels. I don't know if you can make it with 3?
You also need slightly more than 90 %ile UMAT. For example Monash 2012 was 94ish.

https://www.medstudentsonline.com.au/f40/2012-monash-mbbs-interview-discussion-thread-26334/ <- Cutoff around score of 191, 94~%.

Also if you look at previous years both academic and UMAT requirements increase each year. You used to be able to get in medicine with ASs and 85~% UMAT for example.

They will take resits, given you do them in time. Unis will take your 4 best A levels. And only A levels. Not IG, not AS. Haven't heard anything concrete about %s but I highly doubt they would bother.



It's sort of a "might as well do them" thing. For me I did Lit because I heard Monash "heavily preferenced English (and Chemistry)" so I thought why not. I don't think it ever counted for anything in the end but you never know right? Pick the safe option.

As for Japanese (I took that instead of your Chinese), I enjoyed it so I did it lol.

Plus I didn't like the idea of wasting away half a year. What else are you going to do?



Now see the weird thing is... according to that we shouldn't have been able to get second round interviews for UAC. But I managed to get UWS and Newcastle interviews. Over at UWS, I talked to the person in charge of all that stuff and she said "if you've been offered an interview you have met both the academic and UMAT thresholds. At this point only your interview matters in your final placing".

At the same time UAC was telling me (via email) that I DIDN'T meet the thresholds, but dodged the question when I phoned them up.

But in the end I didn't get an offer from UWS anyway so...

Who knows. UAC and the unis contradict each other. You might as well try though, just in case.

Thanks for the in depth analysis Chsal. Yea I think i will follow your guide and might as well try applying UAC unis, as you said why not? 4 A* seems like a reasonable threshold I guess.

Gonna practice more on UMAT now!

Thanks for the reply.

 

[formula16]

Finish off IB or switch to SACE?

Hi all

i'm currently in year 12 and aiming to do medicine at adelaide uni.

Currently i am in the second year of the ib diploma program. i am not sure whether i should continue or stay.
My grades last year for my subjects were
physics - 6
indonesian - 5
chemistry - 7
maths - 7
economics - 6
english - 6

doing chem, physics and economics at higher level this year.

This year i have had to do so much homework every day just to keep up with everything. I have had no time to even prepare for UMAT. I was wondering if I should switch to sace in order to free up some time. Is it hard to get 19s and 20s in SACE? What is the minimum atar to get into medicine? Officially, Adelaide Uni says 90+ but i have heard people say that you need 99+ realistically.

If i were to take sace i would probably take
maths spec
maths studies
chemistry
physics

I know this would be a difficult combination but it would probably still be easier than IB. My strengths lie in maths and science and i am weak at the languages (english/indonesian)

Which path would be better in order to do medicine?

 

[miss_universe]

I think you should stick with IB. You have great marks, and yes, it takes a lot of work, but this is about balancing your study load. It is possible to do well and study for UMAT at the same time. You dont need to do a lot of UMAT study every day, just a little, but consistently.

Plus the UMAT is over and done with by July, leaving you half a year just about to really get into exam prep. IB is mostly about exams anyway, most subjects are 80% weighting to exams, so Internal Assessments are not going to bring you down heaps (though you should still do very well in them if you have good time management). Lastly, most SACE subjects, espeically the ones you have picked, usually have a form of mini-testing throughout the yea, so you will not necessarily come back with more time to study for the UMAT even if you switch.

 

[Xenon Hexafluoride]

I also think that you should stay with IB (though I don't know much about SACE). Your IB marks are pretty good and there is nothing to say that your marks won't improve by the end of the year. I know lots of students that have been able to dramatically increase their marks in year 12. I found that dedicating a bit of time to UMAT was not that hard, you will still have 4 months afterwards to get stuck into studying for exams. I know that subjects like economics are easy to improve in a relatively short amount of time and physics is the same (especially if your are good at sciences ). And as a bonus SATAC is generous with IB to ATAR conversion.

 

[formula16]

the thing is i am strong in maths and science so sace would play to my strengths. Less subjects means i get to focus on them as well. I feel like english and indonesian will drag me down in the end.

 

[robert]

SACE.
You know you want to...

 

[alohomora]

I did year 12 Biology and Psychology in year 11, and then Chemistry, Literature, French and a Philosophy extension at Melbourne Uni. The right subject choices in hindsight, definitely Better to do the subjects you know you feel comfortable with and can do well in than do ones that are harder but will cause you too much stress.

 

[formula16]

im seriously considering sace now, just one thing. I can decided if i should do chem or economics for my last subject. I have covered about half the sace chem course and nearly all of the economics course in IB. I enjoy economics more so obviously i should pick it. But I also enjoy chem albeit not as much but I am thinking chem scales better?

Does chem scale better than economics or is it around the same? Does economics scale down?

 

[robert]

Economics does scale down, I believe (a 20 will scale down to 19.4). Regardless, chemistry has better scaling than economics.