Otago HSFY chat - archive

[greenglacier]

HUBS marks are out! - That's it for hsfy...

How'd everyone go? - I hope you all got some pretty good results.

I'm pretty happy with mine:

(yy)^_^

 

[Deleted member 4350]

Congrats on your 9.0 GPA...MAD respect for you.

I got 87 for HUBS192.

That leaves me with an 86% average and a GPA of 7.7. A solid foundation for postgrad entry. Good luck everyone else!!

 

[SASOL]

Greenglacier- did you really have to post your whole results list? Kinda rubbing it in a wee bit.:mellow: But yeah well done on such great results, you will definitely get into med. I would chop my hand of if you didn't!

Koochkooch, well done to you too!

My results were way better than last semester, but kinda annoyed since I won't get into med. I got 99 in MAOR, 98 in HUBS, 97 in BIOC and 94 in HEAL. Ended up with 94% average, big improvement on my 88% GPA of last semester.

Oh well, at least I know I have the brains to get good grades in a BSc and help me get in post grad.

 

[greenglacier]

SASOL - a bit rich of you to say I shouldn't have posted my results, only to post an even better set of second semester results yourself! Well done - those marks are fantastic! I take it that 94% average is across your best 7 papers? Regardless, an incredible recovery from first semester.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

INSANE results there SASOL. Congrats!

 

[LightGrenades]

Congrats greenglacier and SASOL!
I was a bit disappointed with my 2A-s, A and A+ as I did better last semester *scowls*...
I was sick so I'm hoping that my special consideration will improve my marks...

Hey btw I'm sure that this is a stupid question, but koochkooch, how do you calculate GPA?

edit: Oh I figured it out... 7.9 = :S

 

[SASOL]

Ha sorry greenglacier! Hypocritcal I know, but I wouldn't have posted them if you hadnt. I blame you! Lol kidding. Plus your results are sooooo much better than mine. Btw is your name Tom? I think you may have been in my bioc lab group.

Koochkooch - are you going to do a Bachelor of Biomed Sci instead of a BSc next year?

I also have a question, how did they select med students before UMAT was introduced in 2003 at Otago or whatever year it was?

A few of my mates who had A+ GPA last semester now have A- GPA, I think a few of them did terrible in epi and bioc. Just shows you have to be able to perform over a whole year.
I was very surprised by my epi result.

 

[g.walker]

Heyy otagos! congrats on your results guys, we (Auckland) just got back some of our important ones today, majority of us were happy with them. I take it you guys have fixed grade boundries across all the subjects? it sorta makes it easier to predict how you're gonna do, as the grades for one of our 'core' subjects is awarded to a certain percentage of students. Its surprising how our papers are more or less exactly the same as yours, i guess its a similar case for the MBChB programs too.

Say, when do you guys know who is accepted into med school and who isnt?

 

[greenglacier]

HSFY has undergone quite a lot of change in recent years - makes for interesting reading.

It has obviously beeen in its current form since 2007.

From 2005-06 it was slightly different - things like the 1 semester BIOL 115 paper instead of HUBS, no eighth paper, physics being a full year paper, and the compulsory english paper.

UMAT was introduced in 2003. Before that, entry was determined solely on marks (and I think that is how it had always been - my Dad started med in 1980, and his entry was based solely on his marks, though there were some differences - my Mum got in the same year based on her results from scholarship exams (year 13)...).

2004 and earlier, there were only 4 compulsory health sci papers: Biochemistry (identical to BIOC192), cell biology (very similar to CELS191), BIOL 115, and chemistry (similar to CHEM191, but more physical). There was also a physics paper, an english paper and a biostatistics paper (instead of epi!) - but you could choose not to do these if you had a decent mark in the corresponding subject (physics, english, stats) for year 13, and could instead take a paper of your choosing for admissions purpose.

Interesting quote from the medicine webpage in 2002 - "in recent years all successful students have a grade average better than A-".


Oh, and yeah I've heard some surprisingly low epi marks. I don't know how telling it'll be, but I'm keen to get my exam paper sent to me in January to get some insight into the marking.


Hey g.walker - yeah, we now know all of the results used to rank us for admission (no interview around the corner!). Oh, and yep, A+ is always 90% or above, though they occasionally adjust marks (I don't know of them doing so this year though) - officially Otago opposes norm-based marking (the idea of a certain percentage of people always getting A+). It also means that for admissions purposes our mark (e.g. 96%) is used, rather than the grade.

We get emails saying if we're in medicine by the 23rd of December.

 

[SASOL]

From what I know alot of Selwyn people got quite low in epi, but I don't know about other halls though. Don't really know anyone from halls apart from Selwyn. Fill me in if ya want. But maybe thats because of the mistake they made?

 

[greenglacier]

The epi mistake has been fixed - that's why epi marks were removed from PIMS for 4 hours this morning.

It seems it was just a mixup, affecting a certain group of people (similar in that they are by each other when names are listed alphabetically by last name). I know of some dramatic mark changes that have resulted - both good and bad...

I haven't heard from many people on their epi marks, but the general trend does seem to be, for a given person, to subtract around 5-10% from the mark they would otherwise expect...

Oh, and SASOL - check your private messages.

 

[SASOL]

Trust epi to do that!! One mate of mine, he was freaking out cos he got less than 70, then got changed to A. Another had A- at first which got changed to less than 70. Sucks cos he had really good other results and ot his hopes up. They have M last names. So some people will get a pleasant surprise when they log on to get hubs, others will get a nightmare of a surprise. For a moment I thought they may have given me a wrong mark, hope they don't spring me a nasty surprise and drop it. Doubt it though, my last name is W.

 

[greenglacier]

I think the epi changes have all been made - and yeah, it only seems to have affected people with a last name starting with M.

Just be careful about criticising epi - I don't think it's necessarily their fault in this case. Besides, I've heard of a couple (though not nearly as many) glitches surrounding the biochemistry marks as well - this is why marks are "unconfirmed".

Personally I just want those bold "unconfirmed" messages to disappear from my results and give some certainty amongst these changes!

 

[SASOL]

Oh why whats happened with BIOC?

 

[greenglacier]

I just heard of someone who initially had PIMS recording a fail grade for BIOC, but had it subsequently change to a pass mark. I don't know much more, and I think it was clearly an isolated incident.

The bottom line is that unconfirmed results are unconfirmed and occasional glitches do occur.

I don't think there is much need to worry, but this is why I'm quite keen for results to become confirmed.

 

[SASOL]

yeah true. Oh well only around a month to wait on our offers.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

Oh man...that's SO cruel =[ I can't even imagine how that person must feel right about now

 

[SASOL]

In a way I kinda wish I didn't get such good results, makes umat a bigger kick in the guts. At least if I got less than 70 in something it was more my own fault than umat where i was guessing. But yeah my friend was gutted as but id imagine he felt how i did when i saw my umat.:bored:

I don't really get how you choose papers for a Bsc, Im trying to decide what to take out of pharmacology, anatomy and physiology, and i dont understand how they have to add to certain points. Ahhh the joys of being a spoon fed health sci are over!^_^
Or maybe I might do a bachelor of biomed sci......dno what the dfference is between that and BSc tho

 

[Candy09]

Wow! Gratz to everyone for the insane results and for pulling through HSFY!
Greenglacier, you are a machine dude, if there was 2 spots for med, you would be my pick lol.
And gratz to SASOL and koochkooch for the huge improvements, hard work does pay off... in some things
Im in the same situation as you lightgrenades, S2 results were atrocious and I couldn't even fall back on Maori. I'd like to blame it on UMATS and my 2 week crash period after, but I guess I just got lazy and sick of everything, so I will save you the effort of asking my results skyglow1 cuz its not happening LOL.

I'm working my ass off for my approx. 17k student loan (AQ+HSFY), so good luck with your job searching guys you gonna need it

 

[greenglacier]

In a way I kinda wish I didn't get such good results, makes umat a bigger kick in the guts. At least if I got less than 70 in something it was more my own fault than umat where i was guessing. But yeah my friend was gutted as but id imagine he felt how i did when i saw my umat.:bored:

I don't really get how you choose papers for a Bsc, Im trying to decide what to take out of pharmacology, anatomy and physiology, and i dont understand how they have to add to certain points. Ahhh the joys of being a spoon fed health sci are over!^_^
Or maybe I might do a bachelor of biomed sci......dno what the dfference is between that and BSc tho

Do you have a copy of the guide to enrolment? If you don't, I'd definately recommend getting one - it has tables for all the BSc and BBiomedSc majors showing what papers you need to take, and a list of all papers offered by the university with a brief description and pre-requisites.

For example, for pharmacology, next year you would need to take PHAL 211, PHAL 212 and another 200 level anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, microbiolology or physiology paper, along with some more papers of your choosing (so that you get another 162 points across 2nd and 3rd year, with at least 54 at 200-level or above, and up to 90 outside science - generally one paper = 18 points).

It looks like the BBiomedSc is closer to HSFY than BSc - in that the subject matter is similar, you get to do a wide variety of papers, and there is still quite a bit of spoonfeeding (e.g. 4 compulsory papers, 2 papers chosen from a list of 5, and 1 paper of your own choice).