[Undergrad] UMAT 2017 Results Discussion

[Thots]

Mana must have mistaken WSU for UNSW (understandable since the hospitals are working you so hard haha).

Thots your S1+S2=128 is so borderline for WSU interview based on last year. But I think the cutoff will possibly drop a little since I've noticed the same UMAT percentile has lower Overall score this year than last. If you do get an interview we believe it's all equal 1 in ~3 chance from there.

Much appreciated A1 and Mana.

 

[Dr.Potato]

Overall UMAT Score: 168
Section One: 56
Section Two: 53
Section Three: 59
Overall Percentile Rank: 79
Estimated ATAR/GPA: 7.0/7.0 (atm... this semester is looking pretty bad though :'( )
Preferred University: UNSW, JMP (Med) + UQ, UAdel (Dent)
Application type: Non-standard
State: NZ
GWS: No
Other: N/A

I definitely know I have no chance for this year (had 0 UMAT study), but if I maintain a 6.5+ GPA, what would be a good UMAT score for my Preferred Universities?
[Cheers for your time in advance, everybody x]

I think UQ does accept non-standard Dent applicants, as this is Dr.Potato's plan for next year. Any advice, Pot?

Oops my bad, I lumped UQ into the Med camp.
I think UQ Dent also requires Rank 99 which is around GPA 6.0 by UQ not GEMSAS grade scale, and UMAT around 86%ile. Hope DrPot can clarify.



With 95-96 ATAR a high 6s/7 GPA should bring to 98-98.5 equivalent. For this you would need UMAT 95%ile to get a UNSW interview with 10-20% admission chance, 98-99%ile for 50% chance.

Yeah UQ dent requires 99 ATAR for school leavers (including bonus points), but for non standards the minimum GPA requirement is 6.5+. Unless you study at UQ, then the gpa requirement is 5.8+. After you meet the cutoff you are ranked only based on your UMAT score. https://future-students.uq.edu.au/files/8838/UG_Entry_Options_2018.pdf
They have a conversion table for GPA to OP in that link ^.

 

[biom]

With 95-96 ATAR a high 6s/7 GPA should bring to 98-98.5 equivalent. For this you would need UMAT 95%ile to get a UNSW interview with 10-20% admission chance, 98-99%ile for 50% chance.

UNSW says "As a guide, if a local applicant has a ATAR of less than 93.00, their tertiary results can never be sufficient to raise their academic results to the equivalent of the minimum ATAR of 96.00 required for consideration for entry. An applicant who achieves a ATAR of around 98 would need to reach results of high distinctions in some courses and distinctions in the rest in order to maintain the equivalent ATAR." Local applicants | Medicine
Interpret that info as you will. It seems to say that a GPA of 7 (all HDs) can almost but not quite raise an ATAR of 93 to 96; A GPA of 6.3 (say) can maintain an ATAR of 98.

 

[AKF]

hi - I was just looking at my results statement again and it occurred to me that my individual scores do not add up to my overall score? I got 60, 57, 53, but the overall score says 169? Shouldn't it be 170?????!!! Would this alter my percentile??

 

[A1]

hi - I was just looking at my results statement again and it occurred to me that my individual scores do not add up to my overall score? I got 60, 57, 53, but the overall score says 169? Shouldn't it be 170?????!!! Would this alter my percentile??

No it won't change your percentile. Your section scores could be 60, 56.6, 52.6 before rounding thus Overall = 169. No unis actually use percentile, UNSW for example will use Overall 169 while UQ uses aggregate 170.

 

[A1]

This is new on UNSW website this year > Local applicants | Medicine

"Selection for Offer
Applicants are offered a place in the Medicine program based on

• academic rank,
• UMAT score
• and interview mark.

Using the above three parameters, all students are ranked. Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by all three measures. Scores will not be averaged, which means that a high score in one of the three components will not compensate for a low score in another."

I can't make heads or tails of "Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by *all three* measures" but then "a high score in one of the three components will *not* compensate for a low score in another". Any idea how that works biom or anyone?

 

[acbard9]

Yeah UQ dent requires 99 ATAR for school leavers (including bonus points), but for non standards the minimum GPA requirement is 6.5+. Unless you study at UQ, then the gpa requirement is 5.8+. After you meet the cutoff you are ranked only based on your UMAT score. https://future-students.uq.edu.au/files/8838/UG_Entry_Options_2018.pdf
They have a conversion table for GPA to OP in that link ^.

Ahhh thanks A1, Dr.Pot and biom for all this info!
Dr.Potato/biom, would you happen to know what kind of UMAT score I would need for UQ Dent assuming I hold on to 6.5+? (Best of luck to ya for UQ Dent btw!)

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Ahhh thanks A1, Dr.Pot and biom for all this info!
Dr.Potato/biom, would you happen to know what kind of UMAT score I would need for UQ Dent assuming I hold on to 6.5+? (Best of luck to ya for UQ Dent btw!)

UQ is one of those glorious institutions that publishes previous year cut offs for Med and Dent... obviously they're not exactly the same every year but it's a good guide.

2017 Aggregate: 176
S1: 55 (if they need to tie break you from someone else, they'll use your S1 score).

Applying for the Bachelor of Dental Science (Honours)

 

[biom]

This is new on UNSW website this year > Local applicants | Medicine

"Selection for Offer
Applicants are offered a place in the Medicine program based on

• academic rank,
• UMAT score
• and interview mark.

Using the above three parameters, all students are ranked. Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by all three measures. Scores will not be averaged, which means that a high score in one of the three components will not compensate for a low score in another."

I can't make heads or tails of "Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by *all three* measures" but then "a high score in one of the three components will *not* compensate for a low score in another". Any idea how that works biom or anyone?

I can't see how it is mathematically correct. The aggregate is the sum of the three numbers. The mean is the aggregate divided by 3. Both approaches would seem to give the same ranking.

Perhaps they know something I don't!

This is anyway true.... "a high score in one of the three components will not compensate for a low score in another" either way.

 

[A1]

I can't see how it is mathematically correct.

Obviously written by a doctor haha

But...

This is anyway true.... "a high score in one of the three components will not compensate for a low score in another" either way.

???!!
This makes the mystery deeper.

 

[biom]

Obviously written by a doctor haha

But...


???!!
This makes the mystery deeper.

Either way.... if you get a bad mark for any component.... you are in trouble.

 

[A1]

Either way.... if you get a bad mark for any component.... you are in trouble.

This doesn't make sense in the scheme of things.

UNSW says anyone getting an interview is in with a chance, albeit as low as 10%. Interview selection is 50/50 ATAR+UMAT, meaning one with say 96-97 will need 99-100%ile to get an invite, then a near top interview to get a place offer. So a high UMAT + Interview does compensate for a low ATAR.

If UNSW mean 96-97 are in trouble due to no compensation, what's the point of giving them an interview!

 

[biom]

This doesn't make sense in the scheme of things.

UNSW says anyone getting an interview is in with a chance, albeit as low as 10%. Interview selection is 50/50 ATAR+UMAT, meaning one with say 96-97 will need 99-100%ile to get an invite, then a near top interview to get a place offer. So a high UMAT + Interview does compensate for a low ATAR.

If UNSW mean 96-97 are in trouble due to no compensation, what's the point of giving them an interview!

We are saying the same thing....

"Either way.... if you get a bad mark for any component.... you are in trouble." is the same as "as low as 10%"

 

[Siddy]

We are saying the same thing....

"Either way.... if you get a bad mark for any component.... you are in trouble." is the same as "as low as 10%"

It seems to me they have made some change to their calculation method. Because people that got in from rural nsw wh0 I talk to have told me about marks of others (from rural background) which do seem like they were compensating. e.g people got in with UMAT 151 + ATAR 99, or UMAT 205 + ATAR 92. Maybe now they would preference UMAT 170 + ATAR 96 over those two. And you can't bomb out interview and rely on high UMAT and high ATAR.

 

[NDR]

This is new on UNSW website this year > Local applicants | Medicine

"Selection for Offer
Applicants are offered a place in the Medicine program based on

• academic rank,
• UMAT score
• and interview mark.

Using the above three parameters, all students are ranked. Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by all three measures. Scores will not be averaged, which means that a high score in one of the three components will not compensate for a low score in another."

I can't make heads or tails of "Applicants are selected based on the highest rank determined by *all three* measures" but then "a high score in one of the three components will *not* compensate for a low score in another". Any idea how that works biom or anyone?

My interpretation of this is that they rank students in each of the 3 parameters separately. Then the candidates in the top X for all 3 parameters get an offer. So in this case, say they are selecting just 4 candidates
Candidate 1:
Atar rank: 5
Umat rank: 5
Interview rank: 5

Candidate 2:
Atar rank: 1
Umat rank: 1
Interview rank: 10

Candidate 1 gets an offer over candidate 2. In which case candidate 2's high atar and umat dont compensate for bad interview despite having an overall better selection rank (lower sum of rankings than candidate 1).

In this way once your rank for a parameter is over the cut off it doesn't matter if you are number 1 in that parameter or number X, it wont effect your overall offer chances.

 

[A1]

Candidate 1 gets an offer over candidate 2. In which case candidate 2's high atar and umat dont compensate for bad interview despite having an overall better selection rank (lower sum of rankings than candidate 1).

In this way once your rank for a parameter is over the cut off it doesn't matter if you are number 1 in that parameter or number X, it wont effect your overall offer chances.

Your explanation works for the Rank 1/1/10 example but, as I mentioned earlier would not make sense for 10/1/1. Otherwise the applicants who get interview invites with the lowest ATARs (say 96.5 or 97.0) would be doomed to fail even before they do the interviews, even with top UMAT + top interview. In which case what's the point for them turning up.

If the rank-10/X exclusion is meant only for the interview component UNSW should amend the statement to "a high score in ATAR/UMAT will not compensate for a low score in the interview", not one component/another generically.

 

[Mana]

As an interviewer (not for UNSW) I'd certainly prefer the candidates to be well rounded (including performance in ATAR UMAT and interview).

There is no shortage whatsoever of well rounded candidates for medicine, so those who are significantly lacking in any particular area can easily be replaced by another candidate who isn't. If this is a change to admissions processes, I'd say it's a welcome one.

 

[Siddy]

I gave them a call and they weren't really clear but it doesn't seem like there was a change. The ranking based selection is interesting, but that seems like it is suggesting that students are "ranked overall" based on their lowest score out of the three. I did some investigating (web.archive.org ) and in march this year their site said:

***Please note that the selection criteria is currently under review. Visit this website again in April 2017 for the most up-to-date details.***

 

[Siddy]

As an interviewer (not for UNSW) I'd certainly prefer the candidates to be well rounded (including performance in ATAR UMAT and interview).

There is no shortage whatsoever of well rounded candidates for medicine, so those who are significantly lacking in any particular area can easily be replaced by another candidate who isn't. If this is a change to admissions processes, I'd say it's a welcome one.

I agree. I feel this would likely push down the atar slightly, and we may see a few more 98-99 ATAR's with students who had great interviews and UMAT scores above 190.

 

[biom]

Guys, I would suggest trying not to over-analyse (did I say that?!) the statements from the uni. They seem to be looking for the people that do best in aggregate in UMAT, ATAR and Interview. I am sure that can be sliced and diced in different ways..... but it is all speculation here.

All applicants can do is their best. The ATAR and interviews are still in the future.