Otago HSFY chat - archive

[kidSq]

YES, and the important thing here is to remember is not to let your UMAT result (when you get it in September put you off). So many people get a UMAT of 50th percentile and think that it has ruled them out of med - IT HASN'T. I've even seen someone say "my UMAT was only 70th percentile, so I'm not getting into med". What then happens is they give up on HSFY - and that definitely can rule you out of med.

I've never seen a single person miss out on med solely because of UMAT. I've only ever seen people miss out because of (relatively!) poor HSFY marks, or a combination of poor/mediocre UMAT + (relatively!) mediocre HSFY marks. There's a lesson in that about where your priorities should lie.

no offence intended that simply isn't true, there are so many people who miss out just because of UMAT. I know alot of people(including myself) with A+ and because their UMAT was bad they didn't get in - who are these people with 50 percentile UMAT's getting in?? on the contrary i've never heard anyone with 50percentile getting in with averages between 85-90 unless they were rural or PI/Maori category.. however this is obviously a generalisation made from my point of view just like you based you're statement with you'res which you're fully entitiled to, just thought i'd give me 2 cents.

 

[aaa24]

On a side note, just out of interest does anyone know what the umat cut off for dent interviews is? I would post this in the dent forum but that place is a ghost town

 

[kidSq]

45%tile across all three sections for HSFY apparently.. well thats what it seemed like last year

 

[Cathay]

I'd say that if UMAT showed direct correlation to GPA, then it would almost certainly be failing in it's intended charge of measuring qualities that GPA doesn't measure.

Precisely - especially since (quoted from UMAT website) "it is designed to complement your academic results, not to replicate them."

Draw conclusions from that as you will, but I personally think it shows that there are definitely better acceptance methods.

On the other hand, (again quoted from UMAT website) "UMAT is an aptitude test; it is not a personality or IQ test", and by definition of "aptitude" - "natural ability to acquire knowledge or skill" (Wiktionary, not the most robust source, but still), I seem to think that UMAT tests how easy it would be to train someone into a medical professional - and those with less aptitude may take longer or more work to train, but are not by any means untrainable, and since medical schools have always done the work required to train their graduates to a professionally-acceptable level (rather than doing the same amount of work), I don't believe current medical professionals selected before the days of UMAT can be used as an argument against UMAT - it may simply be that UMAT-selected candidates are easier-trained, hence saving the medical school's resources while pulling in the same fees...

i've never heard anyone with 50percentile getting in with averages between 85-90 unless they were rural or PI/Maori category...

Sorry but that does sound like (relatively!) mediocre HSFY marks coupled with mediocre UMAT to me... From what I've seen so far in HSFY, the nature of the material dictates that "truely outstanding" marks are more like 95% (or more), at which stage GG's formula would say that one only needs 30th percentile in UMAT to get in.

Somewhere earlier in the thread GG is quoted as saying (and I paraphrase here) "98th percentile is enough to get in on even relatively mediocre HSFY marks" - and his formula calculates that somewhere around 85% HSFY average is required for someone with 98th percentile UMAT to get in, and hence 85-90 should be considered (relatively) mediocre.

PS: As GG also said, it has been observed (and explicitly stated when asked in 2009) that the admissions office uses percentage averages, rather than GPA, so a 90% A+ and a 99% A+ are very different.

 

[kidSq]

Precisely - especially since (quoted from UMAT website) "it is designed to complement your academic results, not to replicate them."


On the other hand, (again quoted from UMAT website) "UMAT is an aptitude test; it is not a personality or IQ test", and by definition of "aptitude" - "natural ability to acquire knowledge or skill" (Wiktionary, not the most robust source, but still), I seem to think that UMAT tests how easy it would be to train someone into a medical professional - and those with less aptitude may take longer or more work to train, but are not by any means untrainable, and since medical schools have always done the work required to train their graduates to a professionally-acceptable level (rather than doing the same amount of work), I don't believe current medical professionals selected before the days of UMAT can be used as an argument against UMAT - it may simply be that UMAT-selected candidates are easier-trained, hence saving the medical school's resources while pulling in the same fees...


Sorry but that does sound like (relatively!) mediocre HSFY marks coupled with mediocre UMAT to me... From what I've seen so far in HSFY, the nature of the material dictates that "truely outstanding" marks are more like 95% (or more), at which stage GG's formula would say that one only needs 30th percentile in UMAT to get in.

Somewhere earlier in the thread GG is quoted as saying (and I paraphrase here) "98th percentile is enough to get in on even relatively mediocre HSFY marks" - and his formula calculates that somewhere around 85% HSFY average is required for someone with 98th percentile UMAT to get in, and hence 85-90 should be considered (relatively) mediocre.

PS: As GG also said, it has been observed (and explicitly stated when asked in 2009) that the admissions office uses percentage averages, rather than GPA, so a 90% A+ and a 99% A+ are very different.

Lol ok, firstly all I addressed was GG's statement that he's never seen anyone with bad UMAT / good marks. For the record I got 92% average and my umat was around 50 which is I agree not so great.

I'm sorry 95% is not very easy to get, and I don't think a large clump get that, and I agree those who do probably don't need a very good UMAT but for the majority who are very very likely to get lower than that obviously UMAT matters (the point I was trying to get across was that you shouldn't just brush it off - I'm not going to argue with GG's formulae) - once again only my 2cents

 

[aaa24]

I agree with you mate, UMAT is definitely a big determinant in whether you get in or not and frankly it really is a dream crusher. But what i think GG was trying to get across is not to just give up all hope like many people do when their UMAT results arrive. I mean didn't SASOL get a pretty mediocre UMAT result but because his grades were ridiculously high he still got in. In your case that is just shit luck man, i can really sympathize putting all the effort and getting a damn good average but having one crappy test ruin it for you. Best of luck this year.

 

[Cathay]

I'm sorry 95% is not very easy to get, and I don't think a large clump get that, and I agree those who do probably don't need a very good UMAT but for the majority who are very very likely to get lower than that obviously UMAT matters

That, I fully agree with (hence my saing that 95% is "truly outstanding"), and I should acknowledge that UMAT IS a very real dream-crusher for many, but I guess my point, which GG is stressing, is the fact that we (health sci's) must not lose faith just because UMAT said so - because it IS entirely possible to get in with an unideal UMAT score, and it's much worse to let UMAT results deter us from doing our best in HSFY.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

I mean didn't SASOL get a pretty mediocre UMAT result but because his grades were ridiculously high he still got in.

I'd like to point out that SASOL applied under the rural category which I believe gave him some leeway with the UMAT (although his grades were very impressive).

 

[aaa24]

Oh..... well you learn something new everyday.

 

[Pineapple]

when do we start going over stuff for finals, theyre only just over a month away!

also how much free time do you guys have in health sci? do you ever give yourself a day off the study?

 

[Kikii]

Yes - the earlier the better. I recommend going through the ACER booklets under timed conditions and then analyzing where you went wrong and why you got those questions wrong (e.g. I didn't read the question properly, I missed out an important sentence from the text, I mis-interpreted the graph, I mis-understood some of the emotions). I would also recommend reading widely - read short stories/novels, research articles, fanfiction.net. Do whatever you can to improve your reading comprehension (not just speed, but also comprehension). Vocab is supposedly very important for S2 (I feel that it has been my downfall for the past 2 attempts because mine is very limited and I find it difficult to decipher extreme emotions from subtle ones). What I'm doing differently this year is I've obtained a massive list of adjectives from a friend and I'm going through each individual word on google dictionary and understanding the meaning as well as how to use it in context (they give you several examples of usage in sentences). The best part about it is you can 'star' each word such that you'll have a definitive list of all the words you've 'starred' and can therefore review them every so often. I'm also doing drills and practice exams from various pr3p courses (just in case). The best practice for section 3 is a specific course that I can't mention on here (starts with an 'm' and ends in a 'y'). It got me in the 98th percentile for that section (which proved useless for undergrad entry but certainly helped anyway).

Okay. Thanks for the detailed advice koochkooch

By the way, does anybody know approximately how many people sit UMAT each year in NZ?

Thanks.

 

[frootloop]

Pineapple, I personally gave myself last Friday till now off, but that was the only days off I've had since the semester started, and I'm right back into into it again tomorrow, till the end of semester... Although I definitely don't blame those who give themselves a day off every so often.
Kikki, I think I read somewhere on this site that around 22000 people sat UMAT last year, but I don't know how true that is, nor how many are in NZ (My guess is around 3000, there are 1200 odd health sci kids, about that in Auckland, and a few sit it in year 13 as well) I'm fairly certain some British schools use it as well, which could explain why the number of candidates seems quite high for an Australasian test.
Oh, and Cathay, I'm aware what UMAT is intended to do, but whether it actually works as a good aptitude test for med is somewhat debatable... It works quite nicely in theory, but, in my opinion, people will likely perform somewhat differently in an exam hall than they would in a 'real life' situation. Which is why I prefer Auckland's method, where UMAT still counts, but an interview (where you are actually assessed as a human being, not just a number, like we seem to be to Otago...) rounds off the 'personality test' part of entry to med. Just my opinion though, I'm sure interviews cut off quite a few people who would make good doctors. (nervousness on the day, personality clashes with the interviewers, etc.) Unfortunately, no matter how the selection process is done, it will never be absolutely fair to everyone.

 

[Ben]

when do we start going over stuff for finals, theyre only just over a month away!

also how much free time do you guys have in health sci? do you ever give yourself a day off the study?

We kinda need to finish learning all of the content before 'going over stuff for finals'... Having said that, we're constantly going over what we've already learnt when learning the newer content anyway.

Free time? You dare to imply that someone isn't studying 24/7? D:!

 

[frootloop]

Free time? You dare to imply that someone isn't studying 24/7? D:!

I smell sarcasm

 

[Ben]

I smell sarcasm

I wasn't being sarcastic.

[offtopic] loljk, I was. [/offtopic]

 

[Cathay]

Pineapple, I personally gave myself last Friday till now off, but that was the only days off I've had since the semester started, and I'm right back into into it again tomorrow, till the end of semester... Although I definitely don't blame those who give themselves a day off every so often.

Hmmm, I've done pretty much the same, and have started going over my notes today...

Oh, and Cathay, I'm aware what UMAT is intended to do, but whether it actually works as a good aptitude test for med is somewhat debatable... It works quite nicely in theory, but, in my opinion, people will likely perform somewhat differently in an exam hall than they would in a 'real life' situation.

Yeah, I think the only thing I can say for sure is that UMAT selects a different cohort - it's sort of like when you change the selection pressure in a natural selection scenario, a different set of individuals thrive, but whether one is truly superior to the other is largely debatable.

Also I *think* that medical schools are (or should be) aware of what kind of candidates their selection processes will favour, and would adjust teaching style to suit the candidates - or the other way around, where they formulate their process to select for candidates that suit their teaching style, but either way I believe (or at least I hope) that the job gets done and the medical schools churn out properly trained interns regardless of selection method, in which case all that remains in terms of choosing medical schools is the saying: "the best medical school is the one that accepts me." (ie the whole strategy of taking UMAT in year 13, and if results are unideal => go to Auckland and spend time brushing up interview skills, if results are reasonably comfortable => go to Otago because they value UMAT)

 

[frootloop]

Hmmm, I've done pretty much the same, and have started going over my notes today...

Same here, and I'm quite glad I came back to Otago before the end of the holidays, it is amazing how much my brain died in the 6 days I was away D: [OFFTOPIC] Hence I'm on MSO when I'm supposed to be studying [/OFFTOPIC]
And it would've been good to have done UMAT last year, but the parents (who control the chequebook) decided there was no point...

 

[SeeKay]

Past papers for HSFY?

Hi guys, I realize past papers are available to the students but I wish to know just how many years school provides you with (eg 2005-2008 papers). Having done CIE, I'm somewhat used to using past papers as a part of my study and I just want to know if past papers available to the students are helpful for the actual tests/exams we sit after each topic.

 

[Cathay]

There are past papers from 2007 up to 2010 (the HSFY courses were rewritten in 2007 so you can go looking for earlier ones from ex-HSFY papers if you want, but I'm not sure whether they reflect the exact contents of current exams).

The exam contents haven't changed much since 2007 so I'd expect that most of them are still relevant, but beware of subtle differences - from what I can see in the papers, CELS changed in 2010 to covering the first module in the mid-semester, and NOT the finals, and PHSI got a bit of a rework in 2010 to add sound and hearing.

Having said all that, I haven't sat an actual HSFY final exam, yet, so I can probably be corrected by one of the people around here who have.

 

[greenglacier]

Wow... so I go away from MSO for 3 days and look what happens. I'd like to thank cathay for clearly outlining the gist of the point I was making in my absence.

I've seen a lot of people get into med and a lot of people miss out. I've seen people with UMATs down to 30th percentile get in (including SASOL, who, by the way, would have gotten in even if he wasn't rural), and people with UMATs above 90th percentile miss out. UMAT is far more tolerant than your HSFY marks - I've never seen anyone with a HSFY average <85% get in.

If you look at the Otago wiki on this site, you'll see what the cutoff has been for the last two years, based on good evidence of members on this forum who have gotten in or missed out. The pattern is quite simple - get below 90% average in HSFY and you'll need a pretty good UMAT (>80th percentile) to get in. Get above 93% average in HSFY, and you'd need a UMAT <50th percentile to rule you out. Now, here's the thing. I've never seen anyone with an average above 93% miss out on med... ever. I've definitely seen people in the region of 90-93% average miss out if their UMAT was <50th percentile, but the thing is, such people may not have gotten in if there was no UMAT anyway. kidSq - I feel for you, I really do, but it does sound like you fall under the mediocre marks/mediocre UMAT category. Your first year average was amazing, but unfortunately, there are lots of people with amazing averages who have to miss out on med, and in the context of the competition, 92% is verging on uncompetitive, if HSFY marks are looked at alone.

I've seen quite a few people get into med because of really good UMAT marks (and they are doing fantastically well in med by the way). They wouldn't have gotten in if it wasn't for med, so some people who would have gotten in if UMAT wasn't used must have therefore missed out. However, those people are the ones who would have been borderline if HSFY was the only determinant of med entry in the first place.

If you want to debate on the facts of what is/isn't good enough for med, go ahead, but I think I've got pretty good evidence to back up what I say. Please however don't perpetuate the myth that UMAT can definitively ruin your chance of getting into med - because that is a myth, and it is destructive. UMAT can definitely make it harder/easier to get in, but in the end, your HSFY average (which you have a hell of a lot more control over than your UMAT) is FAR more important - more important than the 67% weighting would suggest.

I've seen people with 50th percentile UMATs miss out on med not because their UMAT was average, but because they THOUGHT it was a lot worse than it was (and so lost a lot of motivation for HSFY, damaging their average). It's tragic when that happens - when a person who was perfectly competitive misses out because they believe the rumours that 50th percentile UMAT = no chance of med. I don't ever want to see that happen to one of the members on this forum.