Non-standard Medicine Entry

[aspiringlemon23]

Are you tied to UAdel only? Did you/will you apply elsewhere?

I have only applied to UAdelaide thus far, in the most recent admissions cycle. Im not 100% sure on where I can apply elsewhere - I think I can apply for UNSW or JCU? Could be completely wrong.

I will apply intertstate at wherever I'm eligible, but I am extremely keen on Adelaide.

 

[Swady]

Hi everyone, can anyone provide some support on what uni's I can apply for for both med and dent. I am enrolled into a degree in hopes of a high wam and my atar was 98.95. I am planning on doing the UCAT again this year but i'm not sure how different uni's work and how they will take my atar of wam. So I was just looking for some help on where I could apply to, and also i am a NSW metro, thanks guys.

 

[A1]

Hi everyone, can anyone provide some support on what uni's I can apply for for both med and dent. I am enrolled into a degree in hopes of a high wam and my atar was 98.95. I am planning on doing the UCAT again this year but i'm not sure how different uni's work and how they will take my atar of wam. So I was just looking for some help on where I could apply to, and also i am a NSW metro, thanks guys.

See these tables:
Med > [Undergrad] - (2023 Updated) Med schools Selection Criteria Y12s & Non-standards
Dent > UPDATED Dentistry Schools Selection Criteria Y12s & Non-standards

I don't know much about Dent to expand.
For Med you're eligible for JCU, UNSW, WSU, JMP (and Bond if you can afford their fees)
- JCU : uses your GPA but you need near 7 to have a chance
- UNSW : either ATAR 99.6+ or GPA 6.6+
- WSU : either ATAR 95.5+ or GPA 6.2+
- JMP : GPA 4.8+ (ATAR not used if you complete 1FTE uni year by end of year)

That's on the ATAR/GPA requirement. Except JCU you'll also need a high UCAT to get an interview. Best of luck.

 

[BlueTuna]

Hi,
I have got a dilemma. I got an offer for degree unrelated to medicine for Adelaide Uni. I still want to try again for the UCAT in hopes to apply for the next round but I am not sure if I should accept the offer. Or whether taking a gap year is a better option? How would accepting an offer alter my chances within Adelaide and other Unis? And are there Unis which don't accept students who took a gap year? Thanks!

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

Hi,
I have got a dilemma. I got an offer for degree unrelated to medicine for Adelaide Uni. I still want to try again for the UCAT in hopes to apply for the next round but I am not sure if I should accept the offer. Or whether taking a gap year is a better option? How would accepting an offer alter my chances within Adelaide and other Unis? And are there Unis which don't accept students who took a gap year? Thanks!

That depends on what ATAR you achieved. Say for instance, a 99.95 would be worth preserving, but a 98.5 or a 99.0 becuase it's not nearly as competitive. It's also dependent on how well you study for the UCAT. If you're competent and have confidence in scoring 98-99% then it's worthwhile. If history tells us ucat is a struggle for you and you manage 85% and below, it's not worthwhile. You need both to make it into medicine.

All of this is overridden if you're rural. If you're rural, you've got enough lee way either way to have sub-common results of metro students.

Starting a degree if conditional to you getting a GPA very close to 7 (think 6.75+). It gets you into a job faster and life started a year early, but obviously can be difficult to manage both. There are unis who don't accept gap year students, but there are also unis who don't accept non-standard students. If you're curious, might be worthwhile to toss this question into the gap year thread.

 

[link1]

Hi can anyone help me with which universities are still open for non standard entry as someone who only did one year of uni? Any still use atar or ucat and the ones without?

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

Hi can anyone help me with which universities are still open for non standard entry as someone who only did one year of uni? Any still use atar or ucat and the ones without?

Medical schools criterion

I've relinked from A1's response. This is a table outlining the criteria for med schools across australia. It's a 2023 production so follow up with your own research to confirm each of the specifics.

Doing 1 year of uni makes you non-standard.
Only Bond and JCU don't require UCAT.

 

[windytree]

Hello everyone, now this is a very wacky question, but just hear me out... I am currently in my second year of dentistry at Adelaide Uni and was wondering if there is any possibility of me getting into medicine as a non-standard, etc. If not, I could always do post-grad. But supposing there is a pathway, how would it work as far as I am aware, dent at Adelaide doesn't really have a GPA, and I guess my UCAT would have to be reasonably high. I am also not sure what universities I would be eligible to apply to since I am in second year now. My atar was 99.1, but I am not sure if I can use that anymore tho. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

Hello everyone, now this is a very wacky question, but just hear me out... I am currently in my second year of dentistry at Adelaide Uni and was wondering if there is any possibility of me getting into medicine as a non-standard, etc. If not, I could always do post-grad. But supposing there is a pathway, how would it work as far as I am aware, dent at Adelaide doesn't really have a GPA, and I guess my UCAT would have to be reasonably high. I am also not sure what universities I would be eligible to apply to since I am in second year now. My atar was 99.1, but I am not sure if I can use that anymore tho. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I mean, it's been tried and tested. I know a pair of sisters who jumped from dent to med at CSU. They were rural scoring close to GPA 7 in the theory portion of dent school (first and second year). It's not strange at all. Some people do go into dentistry as the 'back-up' course and find out they hate it and want out or find out it's a distinctly different skill set to medicine. I'm not sure how AdeU works, but CSU dent generates a GPA, so yours should too even if you've got year long subjects or different course structure (how else are you graded). You basically apply like any normal person (ATAR isn't super relevant anymore). You just have a decently big handicap now becuase sometimes it's difficult to even pass dentistry, let alone score close to 7. You don't get any advantage for being in dent. It's the same as any normal transfer and you can apply for any non-standard med schools the exact same way you normally would. Your UCAT still, unfortuantely, needs to be competitive to make it in.

For post-grad, be very aware that you'll be stuck with your final grade after you graduate. Knowing that getting 6s and 7s are difficult (becuase of practical components), your best shot is generally in 1st or 2nd year or working like a hound out of hell to graduate with a stellar GPA.

 

[windytree]

I mean, it's been tried and tested. I know a pair of sisters who jumped from dent to med at CSU. They were rural scoring close to GPA 7 in the theory portion of dent school (first and second year). It's not strange at all. Some people do go into dentistry as the 'back-up' course and find out they hate it and want out or find out it's a distinctly different skill set to medicine. I'm not sure how AdeU works, but CSU dent generates a GPA, so yours should too even if you've got year long subjects or different course structure (how else are you graded). You basically apply like any normal person (ATAR isn't super relevant anymore). You just have a decently big handicap now becuase sometimes it's difficult to even pass dentistry, let alone score close to 7. You don't get any advantage for being in dent. It's the same as any normal transfer and you can apply for any non-standard med schools the exact same way you normally would. Your UCAT still, unfortuantely, needs to be competitive to make it in.

For post-grad, be very aware that you'll be stuck with your final grade after you graduate. Knowing that getting 6s and 7s are difficult (becuase of practical components), your best shot is generally in 1st or 2nd year or working like a hound out of hell to graduate with a stellar GPA.

Thanks for your response! Well, from what I have gathered, there is no numerical GPA as you are just given a non-graded pass for the BDS annual examination component and a grade like pass, credit, distinction etc. for dental science and practice and the subjects are year-long. Last year I got a credit, not sure how that equates for a GPA but I'm assuming it is quite low I will agree that passing dentistry alone is quite hard. I mean ucat is another thing, but when I sat UCAT in yr 12 i got 3050, which at the time was around 92nd percentile and I only practiced in the two/three week holiday before my test. Some people say that dentistry as a course is given more preference or something due to its difficulty so the GPA is more favourable, but I dont really think thats true at all. I am also not rural so I dont really have that going for me either. I hear a lot of ppl doing the jump or doing post-grad, but it sadly doesn't seem practically feasible. I have contemplated dropping out and just doing a regular biomed degree, but that seems really unwise idk.

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

Thanks for your response! Well, from what I have gathered, there is no numerical GPA as you are just given a non-graded pass for the BDS annual examination component and a grade like pass, credit, distinction etc. for dental science and practice and the subjects are year-long. Last year I got a credit, not sure how that equates for a GPA but I'm assuming it is quite low I will agree that passing dentistry alone is quite hard. I mean ucat is another thing, but when I sat UCAT in yr 12 i got 3050, which at the time was around 92nd percentile and I only practiced in the two/three week holiday before my test. Some people say that dentistry as a course is given more preference or something due to its difficulty so the GPA is more favourable, but I dont really think thats true at all. I am also not rural so I dont really have that going for me either. I hear a lot of ppl doing the jump or doing post-grad, but it sadly doesn't seem practically feasible. I have contemplated dropping out and just doing a regular biomed degree, but that seems really unwise idk.

Going by regular standards:
Pass = 4. Credit = 5. Distinction = 6. High distinction = 7.
From what i can gather, you'd need a bit more than 92% to be competitive these days unfortunately. You might have a buffer in AdeU given they want SA students though. If you put in a few months of study, you might be able to pull that up to the required %. Last years data can give you a hand with figuring that out. It's linked in my signature. From my knowledge, dentistry is given no advantage over any other degree. I wouldn't believe that otherwise you'd have people flocking to get in that way and decimating the dentistry course [simply put, dentistry is a very, very, very expensive course to run. They can't have people dropping into med left, right and centre.]

Before dropping out, weigh the pros and cons:
-If you drop out of dent, it's unfortuantely not a reparable action. You can't turn around and go back to it. Instead, you may be able to defer a year. CSU has a policy for 2 years no questions asked. Maybe AdeU has that option.
- Could you tolerate being a dentist? Or are you honed in on medicine? Dentistry will give you a quicker pathway to a fantastic and lucrative career that is hands on and cognitively challenging, but if med is you thing, so be it.
- What happens if you don't make it into med? What was your back up plan?
-Is it the stress of dental school overwhelming you? [understandable, it's overwhelming me too]

Given that dentistry is a dream couse for thousands of students, I would, as a generalisation, stay in it since most people are happy to do either med or dent. If, however, you're by no means keen on dent, I would highly suggest not dropping out into biomed. Pick anything but science.

As a final note, read the common pitfalls article in my signature too. It might answer some of you questions and remember, you can usually use almost any course to transfer into med be that law, psychology, nutrition, agriculture, physio, pharmacy, chemistry, heck, even wine-making.

Edit: University of Adelaide has a Maxillo facial surgey cohort and MaxFax hopefuls. If you can, if might be worthwhile tracking down student wants to study maxfax or doing maxfax. They need to have done med and dent to make it in and might be able to give you a hand with figuring out a good pathway.

 

[A1]

Some people say that dentistry as a course is given more preference or something due to its difficulty so the GPA is more favourable

See my reply in this post
> Non-standard Medicine Entry

1. Your currently doing dent makes no GPA difference compared to other undergrad degrees.
2. If the ungraded part is half (or less) of the year's study load, they use the graded half for GPA.

3. However considering it was Credit JCU & UNSW are practically out.
But you're eligible for WSU with ATAR 99.1 (regardless of GPA), and likely JMP too since 'Close to Credit' is required. For these two schools UCAT is the sole criteria for getting an interview then mostly on the interview for place offer. Best of luck.

 

[windytree]

Going by regular standards:
Pass = 4. Credit = 5. Distinction = 6. High distinction = 7.
From what i can gather, you'd need a bit more than 92% to be competitive these days unfortunately. You might have a buffer in AdeU given they want SA students though. If you put in a few months of study, you might be able to pull that up to the required %. Last years data can give you a hand with figuring that out. It's linked in my signature. From my knowledge, dentistry is given no advantage over any other degree. I wouldn't believe that otherwise you'd have people flocking to get in that way and decimating the dentistry course [simply put, dentistry is a very, very, very expensive course to run. They can't have people dropping into med left, right and centre.]

Before dropping out, weigh the pros and cons:
-If you drop out of dent, it's unfortuantely not a reparable action. You can't turn around and go back to it. Instead, you may be able to defer a year. CSU has a policy for 2 years no questions asked. Maybe AdeU has that option.
- Could you tolerate being a dentist? Or are you honed in on medicine? Dentistry will give you a quicker pathway to a fantastic and lucrative career that is hands on and cognitively challenging, but if med is you thing, so be it.
- What happens if you don't make it into med? What was your back up plan?
-Is it the stress of dental school overwhelming you? [understandable, it's overwhelming me too]

Given that dentistry is a dream couse for thousands of students, I would, as a generalisation, stay in it since most people are happy to do either med or dent. If, however, you're by no means keen on dent, I would highly suggest not dropping out into biomed. Pick anything but science.

As a final note, read the common pitfalls article in my signature too. It might answer some of you questions and remember, you can usually use almost any course to transfer into med be that law, psychology, nutrition, agriculture, physio, pharmacy, chemistry, heck, even wine-making.

Edit: University of Adelaide has a Maxillo facial surgey cohort and MaxFax hopefuls. If you can, if might be worthwhile tracking down student wants to study maxfax or doing maxfax. They need to have done med and dent to make it in and might be able to give you a hand with figuring out a good pathway.

Yeah if there is no feasible way to get into med I wouldn't mind staying in dent, but I thought I would consider my options while I still had the chance. But with the grade to GPA conversion how would I track how I am doing since we only get given this grade at the end of the year do I just base it off how I do on my written exams or ? Also do you know if there is a thread for Maxfax cause I've heard of ppl that go down that route, but then decide they want something else, and end up doing something random like anesthesia (they now work with my dad), so how does that work... One of those people did med at curtin after dent at AdeU, apparently cause its a lower GPA hurdle for health care courses at curtin or something not sure tho. They make it seem like its very achievable but I'm just so confused how everyone manages to get a high enough GPA from dent to get in Thing is I would only leave dent to pursue med so I dont know if its worthwhile joining some random other degree even if I dont like the course and wont enjoy the job, but the prospect of getting in from dent also seems quite low :/

See my reply in this post
> Non-standard Medicine Entry

1. Your currently doing dent makes no GPA difference compared to other undergrad degrees.
2. If the ungraded part is half (or less) of the year's study load, they use the graded half for GPA.

3. However considering it was Credit JCU & UNSW are practically out.
But you're eligible for WSU with ATAR 99.1 (regardless of GPA), and likely JMP too since 'Close to Credit' is required. For these two schools UCAT is the sole criteria for getting an interview then mostly on the interview for place offer. Best of luck.

See I am not really sure what constitutes the ungraded and graded parts I know that like some assessments just need to be passed like clinical/ practical things and the final exam is also just given NGP, but I have no clue what makes up the credit part of it...
Would my 99.1 still be usuable tho cause its been a year and a bit since then?
Also for WSU what UCAT percentile would I realistically need to have a chance I know above 95th percentile is ideal, but would 85-90th still scrape through or not really?
Also for JMP I'm pretty sure the UCAT cut off is quite high for interstate applicants cause I applied back in year 12 and didn't get an interview offer

Does anyone have any insight on how to improve my dentistry GPA... I have heard of people doing an honours in third year to fourth year apparently that means you can get really close to a 7 (from what I have heard) so then maybe I could just do post grad med ... maybe/ maybe not

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

See I am not really sure what constitutes the ungraded and graded parts I know that like some assessments just need to be passed like clinical/ practical things and the final exam is also just given NGP, but I have no clue what makes up the credit part of it...
Would my 99.1 still be usuable tho cause its been a year and a bit since then?
Also for WSU what UCAT percentile would I realistically need to have a chance I know above 95th percentile is ideal, but would 85-90th still scrape through or not really?
Also for JMP I'm pretty sure the UCAT cut off is quite high for interstate applicants cause I applied back in year 12 and didn't get an interview offer

Pop it in the AdeU dent thread. There should be one. Or general dentistry thread. Grades in university aren't numerical. They're done with this sytem: Pass = 4. Credit = 5. Distinction = 6. High distinction = 7. HDs etc.
7 point gpa system - 7 being the highest score. Basically add together all your overall score for each subject and divide by the number of subjects.
e.g. If I scored Credit, distinction, pass and high distinction, that'd be, (5+6+4+7)/ 4 = GPA 5.5 overall for that semester. Sat and Unsat assessments generally don't count towards GPA, but give you continued mobility to continue with the course. The graded parts are usuallly theory and practical portions that have numerical ruberic (for us, our drilling exam for instance).

 

[future_med]

Hi! I am a first year non-medicine student, considering to apply to unsw/wsu using my uni mark + resitting UCAT. My uni doesn't use the GPA scale, but WAM instead. How do you convert a WAM to GPA, because I tried searching but there isn't anything consistent.

 

[A1]

My uni doesn't use the GPA scale, but WAM instead. How do you convert a WAM to GPA

It's not possible to accurately convert WAM to GPA.
For example if you get two 86s it's 86 WAM and 7.0 GPA (since both are 85+ HD-7).
But if you get 88 & 84 instead, it's also 86 WAM but only 6.5 GPA, coz the 84 is D-6.

What you do is for each subject unit: 85+= HD-7, 75-84= D-6, 65-74= CR-5, 50-64= P-4.
Sum all these grade points then divide by the number of subject units for GPA.

 

[Some guy]

Reinforcing the point that you can study anything and don't need a BMedSci: to get the WAM for med I did a degree in Soviet history with a final year focus on state suppression of peasant collectives.

Can't say it's been especially useful as a JMO, except perhaps when trying to understand what hospital admin really thinks of us. But as a prerequisite for what I really wanted to study, an 85 in the collected works of Lenin was worth the same as an 85 in biochem, and much easier to get.

 

[bubbleteaaaa]

Hi, I'm currently a first-year midwifery student wanting to get into undergrad med and was thinking about jcu since im from qld.. I've heard JCU requires quite a bit of rural/indigenous shadowing to stand a chance, has anyone had luck with acquiring this type of shadowing? How do I go about doing it? I Was considering doing some Indigenous midwifery shadowing. And does anyone have experience transferring from midwifery to med? How was your journey to it? So far my grades seem good but unsure if it'll be good in sem 2 as well...

 

[AnubisHorus&Ra]

Hi, I'm currently a first-year midwifery student wanting to get into undergrad med and was thinking about jcu since im from qld.. I've heard JCU requires quite a bit of rural/indigenous shadowing to stand a chance, has anyone had luck with acquiring this type of shadowing? How do I go about doing it? I Was considering doing some Indigenous midwifery shadowing. And does anyone have experience transferring from midwifery to med? How was your journey to it? So far my grades seem good but unsure if it'll be good in sem 2 as well...

Ideally you'd want shadowing in your career pathway, but it doesn't have to be midwifery. You can apply to volunteer at larger hospitals or emails specific units like Indigenous Liason units to see if they have any openings. Alternatively, you can apply to Indigenous health clinics (of any kind). I believe nursing- medicine is more common, but midwifery to medicine has definitely been done successfully.JCU's has a preference for QLD rural student not just qld students . So it might be worthwhile to do volunteering on say PNG or Weipa for a few weeks where you can work with both the rural population and Indigenous population.
You've still got to aim for close to a 7 GPA though. Just be aware that there have been rural 7 with exp in rural nursing who have missed out on an interview before for no rhyme or reason.

 

[bubbleteaaaa]

Ideally you'd want shadowing in your career pathway, but it doesn't have to be midwifery. You can apply to volunteer at larger hospitals or emails specific units like Indigenous Liason units to see if they have any openings. Alternatively, you can apply to Indigenous health clinics (of any kind). I believe nursing- medicine is more common, but midwifery to medicine has definitely been done successfully.JCU's has a preference for QLD rural student not just qld students . So it might be worthwhile to do volunteering on say PNG or Weipa for a few weeks where you can work with both the rural population and Indigenous population.
You've still got to aim for close to a 7 GPA though. Just be aware that there have been rural 7 with exp in rural nursing who have missed out on an interview before for no rhyme or reason.

Thank you sm for the information! Out of curiosity, they would only know whether you did or didn't do shadowing during your interview right? or would is there a written section before in the application where you disclose those details? Just trying to work out the best times to get a shadowing experience as I've got to be on call for some antenatal appointments and births.