Rural Eligibility and General Discussion

[A1]

This is my first time posting so I hope I'm in the right thread for this! I am applying for med as a rural applicant. I will (officially) be rural for 5 consecutive years in about a month, however I am worried they will disregard me in the applications as there is not option for 'current' when they ask for duration of living at each address.
For example, I'm not sure whether I should state from October 2015 to August 2020 (when I'm lodging the application), or October 2015 to October 2020 (when I will actually be 5 years rural)
I hope this makes sense, it sounded much easier to explain in my head

I would put in Oct 2015 to Dec 2020 for simplicity. You will have to submit a Statutory Declaration anyway I believe.

 

[Jesus20]

Hey guys
If someone has been living rurally for 1 year would Jcu consider that or nah?how many years for Jcu do u need to have lived rurally?I cant seem to find it on their website
Thank u so much

 

[A1]

Hey guys
If someone has been living rurally for 1 year would Jcu consider that or nah?how many years for Jcu do u need to have lived rurally?I cant seem to find it on their website
Thank u so much

In general JCU does not separate out 5-year rural vs non-rural. They give you a rurality rating instead i.e. 1 year rural would have a rating higher than none but lower than more years and/or more rural areas.

 

[Jesus20]

In general JCU does not separate out 5-year rural vs non-rural. They give you a rurality rating instead i.e. 1 year rural would have a rating higher than none but lower than more years and/or more rural areas.

Oh right, Makes sense!Thank you!!

 

[pennystonk]

Hey guys, seeing as preliminary statistics got released earlier in the week I was just wondering if someone would be able to provide me with some insight. Unfortunately, scores have jumped up this year so I'm only sitting at around a 40-50th UCAT. I'm a rural applicant (RA3) and have hopes of studying medicine in South Australia (Flinders or U Adelaide). Just wondering if anyone knew the absolute cut-off atar and UCAT scores for the unis I've listed and what type of ATAR I'll need to be aiming for.

 

[Eleanor Rigby]

Hey guys, seeing as preliminary statistics got released earlier in the week I was just wondering if someone would be able to provide me with some insight. Unfortunately, scores have jumped up this year so I'm only sitting at around a 40-50th UCAT. I'm a rural applicant (RA3) and have hopes of studying medicine in South Australia (Flinders or U Adelaide). Just wondering if anyone knew the absolute cut-off atar and UCAT scores for the unis I've listed and what type of ATAR I'll need to be aiming for.

If I'm not mistaken & there are senior MSOs who can correct me, UNSW will only consider rural applicants who scored in the 50th percentile & over. I haven't been following the forums religiously & wondered if all universities would examine the subsection scores closely for rural applicants. I will be applying in my own state but my friend who scores around the 40th-50th percentile scored better in VR in comparison to the other subsections is considering not applying at all. I'm not in the position to comment but he thinks he should be realistic about the whole thing.

 

[Scorpion]

Hey guys, seeing as preliminary statistics got released earlier in the week I was just wondering if someone would be able to provide me with some insight. Unfortunately, scores have jumped up this year so I'm only sitting at around a 40-50th UCAT. I'm a rural applicant (RA3) and have hopes of studying medicine in South Australia (Flinders or U Adelaide). Just wondering if anyone knew the absolute cut-off atar and UCAT scores for the unis I've listed and what type of ATAR I'll need to be aiming for.

The lowest rural applicant to post an Adelaide interview invite in MSO last year was 67th %ile I think. However, I would predict that rural cutoff percentiles fluctuate more from year to year than general entry due to a smaller applicant pool. For Flinders you would need 99.95 for undergrad entry. The ATAR you need for Adelaide Uni depends quite a bit on your UCAT and interview scores, so nobody could say with much certainty. No harm in preferencing the courses though (there's 6 spots).

 

[dande]

Real quick question; Does anyone know the process to applying to JCU rural? For UQ I had to submit a form stating my addresses through QTAC and im wondering if this covers it for JCU or whats the process?. Is it possibly the address thing on the JCU application that we have to fill in? If anyone has any idea and could let me know that would be great.

 

[Crow]

Real quick question; Does anyone know the process to applying to JCU rural? For UQ I had to submit a form stating my addresses through QTAC and im wondering if this covers it for JCU or whats the process?. Is it possibly the address thing on the JCU application that we have to fill in? If anyone has any idea and could let me know that would be great.

It's based off the schools you've attended in the past that you list in the written application. Based on Ben's word, you are also given a "rurality score" of sorts if you attend the interview, which is essentially the interviewers' impression of "how likely is this person to work rurally?"

 

[YeahTrueHey]

Hey there I've been considering as applying for rural as I lived in a RA2 area then an RA5 area from 2004 to 2009. However, When counting the months the total time adds up to around 4 years and 10 months. I was just wondering if I still qualify for rural entry?

 

[Scorpion]

Hey there I've been considering as applying for rural as I lived in a RA2 area then an RA5 area from 2004 to 2009. However, When counting the months the total time adds up to around 4 years and 10 months. I was just wondering if I still qualify for rural entry?

Most schools will only consider you a rural applicant if you have lived in a rural area for 5 consecutive years, so you just miss the cutoff. Best to check the website(s) of the uni(s) you wish to apply to, though. (Eg. JCU may give you some rural consideration but not as much as ‘more rural’ applicants, but I’m not very familiar with their process).

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Yeh I've already been through all the applications for all unis that have rural entry i qualify

It’s also useful to know that JCU, UNSW, and UTAS (at a minimum) weight rurality, so RA4 gets a bigger ‘boost’ than RA2, for example. Other unis don’t bother with this.

good luck!!

 

[dande]

It’s also useful to know that JCU, UNSW, and UTAS (at a minimum) weight rurality, so RA4 gets a bigger ‘boost’ than RA2, for example. Other unis don’t bother with this.

good luck!!

LMG do you know if they also base rurality based on time or is it sort of just a threshold? so if someone was 10 years RA2 would they be at an advantage then someone else 7 years RA2?

 

[Crow]

LMG do you know if they also base rurality based on time or is it sort of just a threshold? so if someone was 10 years RA2 would they be at an advantage then someone else 7 years RA2?

Time doesn't help once you've achieved the rural "status" (i.e. minimum 5 years consecutive or 10 years cumulative at most unis), only the rurality index does. However, one would likely be more competitive at JCU if they have a greater rural history/background as this would likely strengthen their written application and interview quality.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

LMG do you know if they also base rurality based on time or is it sort of just a threshold? so if someone was 10 years RA2 would they be at an advantage then someone else 7 years RA2?

At JCU, the person with 10 years would likely have an advantage. I’m less convinced that would be the case at UTAS and I’ve not really looked into it for UNSW.

 

[E_N]

Hi there,

What are the specific benefits of Rural Entry (in terms of easier entry, two extra ATAR points (is this correct?) and other benefits)? I have lived in a rural area for over 10 years and therefore qualify. However, I have heard that some universities put you only in rural placements in your final year if you enter via rural entry and hence it isn't a good idea. Is this true?

 

[A1]

What are the specific benefits of Rural Entry (in terms of easier entry, two extra ATAR points (is this correct?) and other benefits)? I have lived in a rural area for over 10 years and therefore qualify.

The immediate benefit is rural applicants have a much higher chance of getting an offer. Most med schools have a separate quota for rural-background students, for example UNSW get ~2200 applicants for 140 non-rural places vs 300 applicants for 50 rural places.

However, I have heard that some universities put you only in rural placements in your final year if you enter via rural entry

Not all med schools do this. Those that choose to do this that's their rules for entering the "rural game", can't do much about it.

 

[dotwingz]

The benefits of rural entry are not hard and fast. Different universities classify different geographical areas as rural, some consider home addresses, some consider school addresses. Some separate rural students into sub quotas, some give a rurality score, etc. Im not sure if any give two extra bonus points (you could be confusing two bonus points for maths at UQ? idk), as a result you will be well served looking at the individual institutions and work out their rural definitions.

I seem to remember that you are from NZ? Were these 10 years in a rural NZ area? In which case you might not be eligble for rural benefit schemes as the geographical classifiers are only calculated for Australian areas to the best of my knowledge

 

[dande]

Some separate rural students into sub quotas, some give a rurality score, etc. Im not sure if any give two extra bonus points (you could be confusing two bonus points for maths at UQ? idk)

From my understanding UQ (the only uni which does this) gives 2 "adjustments added to your selection rank" if you apply as rural. although I am not sure what the point of this is (since everybody whose applying rural gets it so it doesn't make a difference) they say on their website this is the case.

 

[A1]

From my understanding UQ (the only uni which does this) gives 2 "adjustments added to your selection rank" if you apply as rural. although I am not sure what the point of this is (since everybody whose applying rural gets it so it doesn't make a difference) they say on their website this is the case.

The purpose of this, in previous years, was to assist them to meet the ATAR/OP eligibility hurdle. Competition afterwards was only on UMAT/UCAT i.e. the rank bonus was not relevant to competitiveness.