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JCU JCU Medicine: Interview Discussion
- Thread starter Benjamin
- Start date
Nope. We’ve seen applicants with JCU as 5th and 6th preference receive interviews in the past.
futuremed2019
Member
Hey Crow, I was just wondering around what date would the calls from the Dean occur, and if all the calls would go out only the one day?
Usually they’re made a few days before the main QTAC offer round. I believe it’s usually over the span of 1-2 days.
It’s not something people should worry about, though - not getting a call doesn’t mean you’re not going to get an offer.
JCU is likely to make close to 200 offers for the 150 places. The Dean only has time to call 50, maybe 100 at most, of the top ranked applicants. It's his personal effort to convince them to choose JCU over possible other preferences. He has been known to ask during the call whether you have a higher preference elsewhere and spend a little bit of time discussing it.
futuremed2019
Member
How can they make 200 offers to only 150 places?
Usually quite a few will decline JCU when they get a home-state offer. For example it was published in a newspaper last year the names of 50+ students who got a Flinders offer, by the time semester started only 28 turned up according to FlyingAce .
futuremed2019
Member
Would that mean there is a possibility someone who was offered the course could be rejected if 160 people accepted the offer ?
lillysayse
MBBS V
I doubt that. People also leave the course during the year too, and over the next few years, so the beginning cohort may have more people than final years. They probably assume this will happen.
Jason990090
Royal College of Surgeons MBBch (grad med pathway)
If we dont get an offer in the 1st round is there any hope for us in the 2nd round?
Do other courses have a high decline rate? Like say for JMP - how many offers do you think they would make if theres only one round and 170 places?
UTAS also have a very high decline rate for offers made to interstate students (for obvious reasons). I’d imagine any courses in less central locations (so, yes, JMP) would have higher decline rates than, say, Monash, UNSW, or UAdel. It’s also possible people are more likely to decline a provisional Med place, though, again, I’d imagine location would play the biggest role. A Vic local with a Monash offer would be likely to decline a provisional Med UWA offer, but I’d suspect the location would be the primary factor, the style of the course a secondary one. There’s also the “group of 8 effect”, which would impact declines of non-Go8 Unis, ie. someone turning down WSU in favour of UNSW.
Every year (as evidenced by what’s posted here at MSO) a significant number of students get multiple first round offers from various TACs, or multiple same TAC offers by adjusting preferences. Last year, I got three, so when the dust settled, two people still had offers coming. That said, a number of Unis who know they have huge historical decline rates tend to over offer pretty accurately. So it all works out in the end and the stories we hear of people getting offers into o week, which do happen every year, are pretty minimal compared to how many people are still waiting/hoping for an offer.
I believe most, if not all, offers are made in the first round (JCU deliberately over-offers in the first round in anticipation of many declines) so generally one shouldn't be holding out for a second or later round offer after the first round; they may make a few late top-up offers if there are a really significant number of declines after the first round, but I wouldn't bet on that.
A course place offer can't be retracted; this has happened a few times recently (with other universities) and the response from the universities each time has been to send out a request for students to optionally defer their place offer +/- offer incentives for them to do so.
No interview, just written application + academic rank (OP/ATAR/IB/GPA).
I've created a new thread for the current admissions cycle: JCU - JCU Medicine 2019 Discussion. For any further discussion relating specifically to 2019 entry to JCU medicine e.g. discussion about phone calls from the dean, please post in there.
dystopianmonk
Lurker
Hi there, new here. Just wondering - if I decide med isn't for me after 1st year at JCU and wish to transfer out to a different uni to do a completely different course the next year how difficult would that be as I know med is infamously hard to get a high GPA in as it's pass/fail for most assessments (I think?). Would a gpa of 5 be achievable with average amount of effort or do most people hang around the 4ish range? I just imagine that getting into most courses with an average pass GPA would look pretty poor if that's all admissions people took into consideration (rather than the course difficulty).
Thanksss.
Thanksss.
Last edited by a moderator:
I’m not a JCU student, but I don’t think most assessments will be pass/fail if you’re given a GPA at the end of the year (which you are at JCU). Your question is quite difficult to answer as it will depend on the course you choose to go into should you decide “medicine is not for you” - courses like dentistry, optometry and medical imaging are obviously much more competitive than say, an Arts degree. Having a 4.0 GPA (the lowest you can have while still passing all units) would likely be enough to get you into most university courses, but the ones mentioned above obviously are much more competitive to get into, as are courses like paramedicine, midwifery and law (and the requirements differ depending on the university you are applying to).
dystopianmonk
Lurker
Thanks Crow!! I imagine if I don't like Medicine I'd be likely to completely jump ship into something like Law/Arts as Medicine is really the only area of science that genuinely interests me (well I think it does). I've always been a humanities guy so that's why the rapid change but I thought it would be silly to give up my med place if it turns out I love it, hence why I'm starting. I assume law has a high gpa so do you know how hard it would be to pull a reasonable 5/6 gpa in 1st year med? Like, on average do people in med hold decent gpas of 5/6 or do most people simply scrape buy on 4s knowing that it really doesn't matter in med as long as they pass and 7.0s are literally unheard of (compared to other courses)? Would I need to work extra hard to get a gpa of 5 or is that reasonable to get with normal effort? I know you don't go to JCU but I guess this applies in general whichever uni you go to. At Griffith (i see you went there) - I know it would be very different to jcu's course structure, but - do you know what GPAs are normal after 1st year?
Sorryy for all the questions - I tend to overthink things way toooo far in advance. Appreciate all your help.
