Interview offers & dates 2016-17

[A1]

Is Monash considering 50-50-50 UMAT threshold scores for interviews this year (similar to last year) ?
What is the required ATAR for my UMAT 81% with S1 60, S2 55, S3 56 (Total 171) ?
What is the UMAT threshold for UWA and Curtin ?

Q1. Yes according to some, No according to this person who talked to Monash Admissions
> Apparently no 50/50 rule for monash med? someone help me clarify pls!

Q2. If loosely based on Unsw numbers, around 99.50

Q3. No clearcut threshold because UMAT counts in combination with ATAR for both WA and Curtin. A 99.95 may need 75%ile while a 95.1 likely will need close to 100%ile, wouldn't make sense to call either one the threshold.

 

[Mana]

Is Monash considering 50-50-50 UMAT threshold scores for interviews this year (similar to last year) ?

What is the required ATAR for my UMAT 81% with S1 60, S2 55, S3 56 (Total 171) ?

What is the UMAT threshold for UWA and Curtin ?

The Monash 50/50/50 rule excludes candidates that get under 50 in each section but this does not guarantee that you will get an interview if you score above 50 in each section; the cutoff for interview is usually significantly higher. While Monash doesn't publish their cutoffs for interview, a 171 is well below historical scores required for interview at Monash - it is, after all, one of the two highest demand medical degrees in Australia for year 12's (the other being UNSW).

Curtin has no data as this is the first intake and cutoffs are usually determined by supply and demand. Thus, your guess is as good as anybody's here... except that again I would expect that for a non-rural student a 171 would probably not make the cutoff for interview as such a large proportion of the cohort is set aside for rural students, and Curtin is now the only WA university to accept undergrads into a non-provisional medical place.

UWA's cutoffs for provisional entry are also kept relatively secret; however, owing to the high demand due to the small number of undergraduate medical places here, I would also expect the cutoff to be at least in the 180's.

Unfortunately your UMAT score isn't exactly competitive, so this might be something to work on in the future.

 

[biom]

Exams there historically have had a generally small window between passing and failing (for example, to get an A, the highest possible score on a paper, you need 65%, which says something about the difficulty of such a paper, whereas getting under 50% would mean you failed).

Do you have any info on the mean and standard deviation?

At UNSW they have published data (whole of uni) showing that typically 10% of passing students get the top grade (https://student.unsw.edu.au/sites/all/files/uploads/group33/Gumleaf_1.png).

If Adelaide has a similar approach of ~10% for A and then squeezing the rest of the passing cohort into the range 50-65 leaves little room for distinguishing performance for the remaining 90%. This would be an unusual design. Do many more than 10% get A?

 

[Myst]

It's been covered somewhat in other threads (mostly by me), but the basic reason is that the fail rate is high (approximately 10% per year other than in year 6 where there are no barrier exams) and then students who fail more than once go up for academic review where they may be excluded from the course. Exams there historically have had a generally small window between passing and failing (for example, to get an A, the highest possible score on a paper, you need 65%, which says something about the difficulty of such a paper, whereas getting under 50% would mean you failed).

Given these two factors and the high rate of students going up for academic review who get excluded it's a no brainer why so many people drop out of the course.

Does that mean the Other University doesn't have a high fail rate due to their standard of marking/pass mark ? Also how many times can a student fail before they get "kicked out", and does this differ from Uni to Uni ?

PS: Not sure if this info has been posted before on another thread, sorry. So asking here now.
Thanks (^_^).Y

 

[Mana]

Do you have any info on the mean and standard deviation?

At UNSW they have published data (whole of uni) showing that typically 10% of passing students get the top grade (https://student.unsw.edu.au/sites/all/files/uploads/group33/Gumleaf_1.png).

If Adelaide has a similar approach of ~10% for A and then squeezing the rest of the passing cohort into the range 50-65 leaves little room for distinguishing performance for the remaining 90%. This would be an unusual design. Do many more than 10% get A?

I did in the past, unfortunately not anymore (perhaps one of the current students can give us a more current update. @MedDent101 )

From memory though it wasnt the case that the other x% fit within the 50-65% range; there was a significant proportion who got underneath that (hence the high fail rate). It was possible to make up a poor mark from the mid year exams in the corresponding end of year exam (in my experience back then, which has possibly changed now) but suffice it to say that most people who struggled with the mid year exam also struggled with the end of year one.

UNSW's rate of people getting an A is with their 'A' being over 85%, a whole 20 points above what Adelaide deems to be their top mark at 65%. Thus it's not really comparable in that regard; I'm fairly certain more than 10% of any given Adelaide candidature for an exam would get higher than 65% for that exam, but both follow a standard bell-curve distribution, and since the gap between 50 and 65 is so small, the fail rate with such a distribution is expected to be quite high.

 

[Mana]

Does that mean the Other University doesn't have a high fail rate due to their standard of marking/pass mark ? Also how many times can a student fail before they get "kicked out", and does this differ from Uni to Uni ?

PS: Not sure if this info has been posted before on another thread, sorry. So asking here now.
Thanks (^_^).Y

You can see the stats in that other thread from the link which was posted. No other university even comes close in terms of attrition rates - the next largest contributor to non first year attrition was JCU with under 10% of Australia's total.

Adelaide's policy is that students who fail more than once can be kicked out of the course, depending on their performance in academic review (which is basically another interview explaining why they should keep you in the course). This policy is also the case at most other universities (fail twice = leave) but the major difference is that the fail rate at most other universities is much lower, and thus the chance of any student failing twice is much smaller. The fail rate of course is dependent on the university and the cohort, but historically if you were to look at Adelaide's fail rate compared to others, you have to assume that they have a harsher marking standard than the others.

 

[biom]

Since the gap between 50 and 65 is so small, the fail rate with such a distribution is expected to be quite high

That only follows if the SD is large. Empirically you can fit a mean of ~67 and a SD of ~17 to the UNSW diagram. a mean of 58 and SD of 8 would give SA ~10% fail and ~10% with A..... but that is a tiny SD.

Anyway.... interesting to hear how the different unis operate.

 

[biom]

historically if you were to look at Adelaide's fail rate compared to others, you have to assume that they have a harsher marking standard than the others.

Another alternative would be that they set the entry criteria too low or are poorly organised in their teaching delivery.

Does anyone have a view on these two points?

 

[Mana]

That only follows if the SD is large. Empirically you can fit a mean of ~67 and a SD of ~17 to the UNSW diagram. a mean of 58 and SD of 8 would give SA ~10% fail and ~10% with A..... but that is a tiny SD.

Anyway.... interesting to hear how the different unis operate.

No, it only follows if the SD is not small enough to fit given those two points. A fairly normal looking bell curve for any university med cohort would place a lot of people outside the 15 point window that Adelaide has set as a non-A non-fail mark.

 

[Mana]

Another alternative would be that they set the entry criteria too low or are poorly organised in their teaching delivery.

Does anyone have a view on these two points?

Having studied med at Adelaide personally, and then comparing that teaching to some other university medical courses, I can say that Adelaide's teaching delivery is very high quality. It could very well be that their entry criteria is too low, but given the same demand, to set it higher would just mean a decrease in the number of places offered (which personally I think would be a good thing due to the med graduate oversupply).

I did see a correlation in terms of who dropped out - these were almost never students who were 99 ATAR; most were in the lower 90's.

 

[MD]

In semester 1, the mean score for Medical Knowledge Exam (harder exam, most people who failed a year did so because they failed this exam) was 50ish% (with just under 10% students scoring As) while that for Clinical Reasoning Exam was 60ish% (with approx 50% students scoring As.. not sure if this will allow calculation of the cut off mark for an A?) - not sure if these results are normal or slightly low? And for the Medical Knowledge Exam, slightly over 20% of students failed it (scoring a D or E). As for the Clinical Reasoning Exam, less than 5% of students failed. Important to note that of the people who did fail an exam in sem 1, some (not sure of the proportion) passed the year without needing any supplementary exams. (If you get a borderline fail in the 40s, you'll be allowed to sit supplementary exams and hopefully be able to pass the year.) So perhaps, the uni has taken some action to improve the fail rate as it doesn't appear to be a significant problem this year.. but we'll still have to see.. Failing an exam doesn't necessarily equate to failing the year, as one may have thought.

 

[Karima]

What's the required ATAR for UMAT score 98 for medicine in UNSW (2nd round interview) and Monash interview?

 

[A1]

What's the required ATAR for UMAT score 98 for medicine in UNSW (2nd round interview) and Monash interview?

From previous years UMAT 98%ile requires around 97.5 for UNSW.
Otoh if interstate to Monash you probably need 99.0+ there.

To explain why, a 99.5 needs UMAT around 170 for UNSW yet an interstate with 186 last year did not get Monash 2nd round (cutoff was so much higher!). Then she got a call to come urgently for a "top up" interview and quickly got a place offer. I think Monash deliberately interviews very few interstate applicants but in return, they are almost assured of a place unless they really bomb the interview.

 

[Karima]

From previous years UMAT 98%ile requires around 97.5 for UNSW.
Otoh if interstate to Monash you probably need 99.0+ there.

To explain why, a 99.5 needs UMAT around 170 for UNSW yet an interstate with 186 last year did not get Monash 2nd round (cutoff was so much higher!). Then she got a call to come urgently for a "top up" interview and quickly got a place offer. I think Monash deliberately interviews very few interstate applicants but in return, they are almost assured of a place unless they really bomb the interview.

Thanks. Are they considering the same requirements for 2nd round interviews also?

 

[A1]

Thanks. Are they consider the same requirements for 2nd round interviews also?

I assume you mean UNSW 2nd round. Afaik UNSW uses the same ATAR+UMAT cutoff for 1st and 2nd rounds. Third round cutoff may be raised higher if the 1st & 2nd round interview scores indicate the current cutoff has no chance of success.

 

[A1]

Bad news for interstate applicants from QLD/TAS/SA/WA. I see from their websites 2nd/3rd round interviews for Monash & UNSW will both be on Tues 24th Jan, WSU on 25th and JMP says 23rd-27th. This will make it difficult/impossible to attend Monash plus any one of the NSW uni. Very kind of them aren't they!

Anyone wanting to attend both UNSW and Monash, beg either uni now to give you an interview in their 4th-5th Jan round instead of the interstate round.

 

[Myst]

Bad news for interstate applicants from QLD/TAS/SA/WA. I see from their websites 2nd/3rd round interviews for Monash & UNSW will both be on Tues 24th Jan, WSU on 25th and JMP says 23rd-27th. This will make it difficult/impossible to attend Monash plus any one of the NSW uni. Very kind of them aren't they!

Anyone wanting to attend both UNSW and Monash, beg either uni now to give you an interview in their 4th-5th Jan round instead of the interstate round.

Doesn't make sense why they (Monash and UNSW) would do that...

 

[mary poppins]

Doesn't make sense why they (Monash and UNSW) would do that...

unless you consider that they are potentially vying for the same students and hence so they dont waste time and money they get the student to choose the one they would prefer if given a choice from an offer from both. They make the applicant choose before the offers are made saving themselves time and adminstration costs. Only downside is for the applicant

 

[Karima]

Bad news for interstate applicants from QLD/TAS/SA/WA. I see from their websites 2nd/3rd round interviews for Monash & UNSW will both be on Tues 24th Jan, WSU on 25th and JMP says 23rd-27th. This will make it difficult/impossible to attend Monash plus any one of the NSW uni. Very kind of them aren't they!

Anyone wanting to attend both UNSW and Monash, beg either uni now to give you an interview in their 4th-5th Jan round instead of the interstate round.

oh that's not fair

 

[Mana]

This is rather unfortunate... and actually this problem has never reared its ugly head in the past to this extent.

I would expect either or both universities to rectify this situation ASAP - however, in terms of giving yourself the best individual chance at both universities, I would be attempting to do what A1 has suggested.

Edit: Lets see if MSO can be a student advocate here. I've used the MSO account to message both UNSW and Monash in regards to this issue; links here:

Hi there, It's come to our attention... - Med Students Online | Facebook

Hi there, It's come to our attention... - Med Students Online | Facebook