UNSW UNSW Medicine: General Entry Questions and Discussion

[Mj232]

You were ranked 114th but they sent you a rejection letter? (you posted a screenshot of an email you received, saying "cannot consider you for further rounds"...) Does that mean anyone below your rank doesn't have a chance? I didn't receive an offer this round so I'm just hoping there's still a chance lol

It said further interview rounds

 

[beepdeboop]

It said further interview rounds

Oh wait. I thought you did an interview because it said your interview performance was average.... What are interview rounds?

 

[hazell]

This is an email reply my friend received:

“There is no waitlist for the offers and I can confirm that unfortunately you will not be receiving an offer from UNSW Medicine in the future rounds this year.

In terms of the academic component, I can clarify that the minimum cut off of 99.6 is the selection rank not ATAR. We cannot disclose the process of score conversion as that is taken care of by UAC.”

 

[Hello132]

Hi,

I've just received an interview invite from UNSW; however, I am a VIC applicant and according to the key dates section on their website, interstate applicants are not due to have interview invites until Jan 25th. Are there any other VIC students who received an offer today? And should I even try for the interviews, considering that it will occur on the 14th when VIC offers will be made. I only received a 96th percentile UCAT and a 99.2 ATAR, which I feel is a bit low particularly for interstate applicants.

Thanks

mod note: offers changed to interview invites where appropriate

 

[sneakyturtle]

Hi,

I've just received an interview invite from UNSW; however, I am a VIC applicant and according to the key dates section on their website, interstate applicants are not due to have interview iuntil Jan 25th. Are there any other VIC students who received an offer today? And should I even try for the interviews, considering that it will occur on the 14th when VIC offers will be made. I only received a 96th percentile UCAT and a 99.2 ATAR, which I feel is a bit low particularly for interstate applicants.

Thanks

mod note: offers changed to interview invites where appropriate

Hey I’m an interstate applicant and got an interview invite earlier today as well! Maybe some sort of bonus early round

 

[Eleanor Rigby]

How do you know it scats is accepted? I wonder if mine was accepted too

They emailed me a while ago 'This is to advise that the University has received your Special Consideration for Admission and the circumstances you have outlined will be taken into consideration in the selection process. '

Asking this question for a friend & this could be a golden opportunity to ask as some offers have recently been released; regarding the SCATS UNSW applications, do you need to certify your statements? I can see challenges here in doing so especially when it comes to verifying circumstances in a personal statement.
Official documents can be obtained but do all written letters by you need a certification by way of a signature from independent professionals. Who do/can I ask?

 

[A1]

I only received a 96th percentile UCAT and a 99.2 ATAR, which I feel is a bit low particularly for interstate applicants.

It's likely UNSW has given you EAS to add to your 99.2. Otherwise without EAS 99.2 is a fair bit below the announced 99.60 offer "cutoff", and in previous years UNSW didn't invite any interstates having a score below the local offers' lowest.

They even retracted such interstate invites that had been sent out together with local invites, on the basis they had practically zero chance (based off the local offers) why waste their time & travel money.

 

[hazell]

Asking this question for a friend & this could be a golden opportunity to ask as some offers have recently been released; regarding the SCATS UNSW applications, do you need to certify your statements? I can see challenges here in doing so especially when it comes to verifying circumstances in a personal statement.
Official documents can be obtained but do all written letters by you need a certification by way of a signature from independent professionals. Who do/can I ask?

I submitted a SCATS application this year and you need to provide supporting evidence for whatever you’re claiming disadvantage for. When you’re on the SCATS application portal, they will tell you what type of supporting documentation is needed. For example, for financial disadvantage they will ask you to provide either Centrelink statements or bank statements- the personal statement is for you to describe the disadvantage and how it impacted your studies.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “written letters by you”, the personal statement should be the only part written by you- the supporting documentation must all be official documents (e.g. bank statement, psychologist report). Written statements, for example a psychologist report, should be signed.

 

[Rei]

Out of curiosity, I thought the best of algorithm applies for a certain ATAR/ GPA threshold, then they look at only one irrespective of the other?
And I dont get how ATAR and GPA can be coverted to each other, it makes no sense... One is a rank, the other is a mark

Even if someone ends up with a 7 GPA, its just that its a range of marks. Lets say make it easier then.
UNSW uses a WAM system, someone who gets 90 is equivalent to someone who gets 88? I am not aware of how that works...
Or within a GPA of 7 there are some sort of grades? Like a scale system to place students? I am out of hs so I dont really have much knowledge on this, just throwing my speculations out there.
Also, have we tried to call admissions office and ask them of what GPA to Selection rank conversion is?

 

[hazell]

Also, have we tried to call admissions office and ask them of what GPA to Selection rank conversion is?

I called up UNSW a while ago asking about WAM/GPA conversion to ATAR and they told me they can’t reveal that information and it’s determined by UAC.
I haven’t called UAC to ask, but I’m unsure if they’ll reveal this information. I could try though!

 

[Rei]

I called up UNSW a while ago asking about WAM/GPA conversion to ATAR and they told me they can’t reveal that information and it’s determined by UAC.
I haven’t called UAC to ask, but I’m unsure if they’ll reveal this information. I could try though!

Please keep us posted!

 

[hazell]

I called up UNSW a while ago asking about WAM/GPA conversion to ATAR and they told me they can’t reveal that information and it’s determined by UAC.
I haven’t called UAC to ask, but I’m unsure if they’ll reveal this information. I could try though!

I just got off the phone with UAC, they said it's not information they make public since WAM/GPA is converted to a selection rank which differs for every university.

 

[Rei]

just curious to know what percent of non standards get in each year

 

[A1]

UNSW uses a WAM system, someone who gets 90 is equivalent to someone who gets 88? I am not aware of how that works

UNSW uses WAM for their internal matters. Med application is through UAC which uses GPA. For all the TACs that we know about a HD is worth the same as another HD whether its mark is 90 or 86 or 82 (from a 80+ HD uni), that's just how they have adopted.

I called up UNSW a while ago asking about WAM/GPA conversion to ATAR and they told me they can’t reveal that information

UNSW has revealed in the past, here's a sample


In this reply to the student UNSW explained clearly his ATAR was 98.55, EAS boosted to 99.95. His GPA 6.17 was UAC converted to 96.3, then combined with 99.95 to Selection rank 98.12. (But note this year UNSW has switched to best of between post-conversion ATAR & GPA).

Btw the 6.17 to 96.3 closely matches the conversion table we believe UAC uses
> https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/attachments/1563351587784-png.2681/

 

[Rei]

so a 6.5 and a 7 will have same selection rank

 

[A1]

so a 6.5 and a 7 will have same selection rank

We don't know for sure. There is room for UAC to convert >6.5 to >99.5 (Note how 6.17 was converted to 96.3, not 96.0 as shown in the table).

just curious to know what percent of non standards get in each year

I'm not sure if this is reliable. Use this link > https://www.futurestudents.unsw.edu.au/admission-unsw
enter BMedSt/MD under View Student Profile I see 2020 intake had 5 non-standards 173 school leavers.

However I swear in previous years non-standards were close to 30% of the intakes, from this same link.
(Maybe 2020 was an anomaly, or maybe UNSW already used "best of" for last year i.e. a good number of non-standards got in through their ATAR, so listed under ATAR stats rather than GPA).

 

[Rei]

Ohhh cause I have a poor atar, was hoping if i had a chance at unsw if i go through non standard haha

 

[neverthoughti]

We don't know for sure. There is room for UAC to convert >6.5 to >99.5 (Note how 6.17 was converted to 96.3, not 96.0 as shown in the table).

I thought I would just confirm that a 6.5 GPA is 100% converted to 99.5. I called UNSW just to enquire about my interview and she said, "your 99.5 falls below the cutoff this year 99.6." My atar was around 95 (falling below the 96) and my gpa was 6.5. So, they definitely used the best of method, which would thereby be my GPA - which she called a 99.5.

 

[Rei]

Why are the admissions office people so haphazard, sometimes they speak up and be the nicest of people on planet earth and sometimes......

 

[Eleanor Rigby]

I submitted a SCATS application this year and you need to provide supporting evidence for whatever you’re claiming disadvantage for. When you’re on the SCATS application portal, they will tell you what type of supporting documentation is needed. For example, for financial disadvantage they will ask you to provide either Centrelink statements or bank statements- the personal statement is for you to describe the disadvantage and how it impacted your studies.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “written letters by you”, the personal statement should be the only part written by you- the supporting documentation must all be official documents (e.g. bank statement, psychologist report). Written statements, for example a psychologist report, should be signed.

Yes, I didn't write my question well enough. I'm wondering if the personal statement written by the applicant has to be verified.
For example, let say an applicant's performance in the HSC was affected by the bushfires and there are reports of the bushfires in the media with the locations specified and applicant resides in these locations.
Does this occurrence in the personal statement requires verification? Should it even be included in the statement?
Applicant did not submit a claim for bushfire through Centrelink out of principle. ''Social security is not an infinite pot of resource & it should go to the most needy." BTW applicant did not apply for med after reading the UCAT scores in October, he is pretty decent. From, Rigby.