UNSW UNSW Medicine: General Entry Questions and Discussion

[JLook1]

Sorry you couldn't find, I deleted it because I wasn't answering your 9-year-ago question. But I am this time.

From a chart I saw on MSO in 2015 (presumably with data of the few years before) 99.10 then would have required 88-89%ile to just get an interview. Last year it climbed to ~93%ile. Note that this is borderline, meaning you'd need a near top interview to balance up into the top third for a place offer. To succeed with a decent interview you will need anywhere between 96 & 99%ile depending on the relativity of your decent against the interview cohort (I mean if they in general do decent as well then your decent is just par).

In comparison with 2011 it appears you are now about 4%iles worse off.

Hi A1

Thanks for the consolation.

Cheers

 

[ponyswordz]

If I put UNSW as first preference and WSU as second preference and I meet the benchmarks in getting offers from both universities (assuming I miss out on kensington and get port macquarie instead for UNSW), would I be able to hold my offer in both universities? Or does it mean that I lose my WSU offer and have to go to port macquarie instead? Living in Sydney as a reference.

 

[A1]

If I put UNSW as first preference and WSU as second preference and I meet the benchmarks in getting offers from both universities (assuming I miss out on kensington and get port macquarie instead for UNSW), would I be able to hold my offer in both universities? Or does it mean that I lose my WSU offer and have to go to port macquarie instead? Living in Sydney as a reference.

That's the irony of Unsw not giving you two separate pref entries for their two campuses. With the normal UAC process you WON'T even be notified of a WSU offer let alone keeping it.

One way you can try to overcome is accept the Port Mac offer then move WSU to higher pref, hoping to get it in the 2nd UAC offer round.

EtA: You'd face the same problem if you prefer WSU unbonded over Unsw BMP but are given the latter first. I suggested last month you guys should write a strong group letter to UAC to request to be notified of multiple eligible offers and allowed to choose at that point, rather than UAC strictly following your insufficiently specific prefs.

 

[zx72ksq8o]

Hi, is a rural rating of 4 (RRMA) considered ok if UNSW is weighing it into our final offers? My predicted atar is 99.95 and my ucat is 96%ile ... i don't know the usual distribution of rural candidates on the RRMA scale. I hope it's not low / won't offset my chances since it's weighed at 25% i think ??

 

[ucatboy]

Hi, is a rural rating of 4 (RRMA) considered ok if UNSW is weighing it into our final offers? My predicted atar is 99.95 and my ucat is 96%ile ... i don't know the usual distribution of rural candidates on the RRMA scale. I hope it's not low / won't offset my chances since it's weighed at 25% i think ??

JC I don't know if you've gotten the memo yet but 99.95+96 is HIGHLY COMPETITIVE for standard entry, never mind rural - stop worrying my guy you'll make it

 

[zx72ksq8o]

ucatboy thanks my dude

 

[zx72ksq8o]

Hi folks, so I've got a 99.95 predicted atar and a 96%ile UCAT (plus i'm rural) - I know many of you have said to me that UNSW med should be very possible from there, but isn't atar and ucat only 50% of the requirement?? My rural rating is ... so-so and 'ruralness' is worth 25% of the offer. Wouldn't I have to do really well in the interview to make up for this?

Even a non-rural with 99.95+95%ile only needs to not be in the bottom 20% interview to get an offer.

Rural it would be a shoo-in unless you say something very wrong in the interview.

So since the rural interviews are weighed at 25% which is still quite a lot, wouldnt i need to be in the top 50% of the interviewees to offset my average rural rating instead of being in the top 80%? Because at the end of the day, the interview and rural rating together make up 50% of the offer (the same weight as ATAR and UCAT).

tysm for your time, whoever reads this

Eta: ofc a best attempt will be always be given ... I was just wondering if my atar and ucat would be offset as a whole b/c of my rural rating (idk though)

 

[DrDrLMG!]

Hi folks, so I've got a 99.95 predicted atar and a 96%ile UCAT (plus i'm rural) - I know many of you have said to me that UNSW med should be very possible from there, but isn't atar and ucat only 50% of the requirement?? My rural rating is ... so-so and 'ruralness' is worth 25% of the offer. Wouldn't I have to do really well in the interview to make up for this?

So since the rural interviews are weighed at 25% which is still quite a lot, wouldnt i need to be near the very top of the interviewees to offset my average rural rating instead of being in the top 80%? Because at the end of the day, the interview and rural rating together make up 50% of the offer (the same weight as ATAR and UCAT).

TBH, does it really matter? If A1 tells you you only need to score in the bottom 20%* to be successful, does that mean you're going to go into the interview aiming to only give it a half-assed attempt? No, you're going to give it your absolute best shot. Panicking over minute details like this really doesn't help you and also doesn't at all change the way in which you will approach the interview.

* what even is above 20% of interviewee scores, or 80% of interviewee scores? It's not a solid figure you can aim towards because it's entirely dependent on how everyone else does. This just further highlights the need to go into interviews with the intention of being as prepared as you can be. It's not possible to walk into an interview and go, 'yep, that was about the 35th percentile, that'll do', or 'that was at least 80th, I'm a shoo-in'. It doesn't work like that.

 

[A1]

So since the rural interviews are weighed at 25% which is still quite a lot, wouldnt i need to be in the top 50% of the interviewees to offset my average rural rating instead of being in the top 80%? Because at the end of the day, the interview and rural rating together make up 50% of the offer (the same weight as ATAR and UCAT).

True I forgot about UNSW's rurality rating being a 25% factor, I wrote that with the basis all rurals were equally rural. Since your rating is only so-so it drags down your ATAR+UCAT advantages. How about I change to having to score the interview better than the bottom 30-40%?

 

[ucatboy]

True I forgot about UNSW's rurality rating being a 25% factor, I wrote that with the basis all rurals were equally rural. Since your rating is only so-so it drags down your ATAR+UCAT advantages. How about I change to having to score the interview better than the bottom 30-40%?

I'm confused by this estimation. Is it not the case that in standard (non-rural) entry, a 99.95+96%ile combo would give you approximately a 70% chance (30%ile+ interview performance) of getting in anyway? How come samyang being rural doesn't alter his chances significantly, if at all?

 

[A1]

I'm confused by this estimation. Is it not the case that in standard (non-rural) entry, a 99.95+96%ile combo would give you approximately a 70% chance (30%ile+ interview performance) of getting in anyway? How come samyang being rural doesn't alter his chances significantly, if at all?

For UNSW a non-rural with 99.95+96%ile would have 2 strongs + 1 unknown going into the interview. Since UNSW uses a rurality rating and Samyang being so-so rural it's 2 strongs + 1 weak + 1 unknown. We can argue the 2 strongs are now extra strongs in the rural pool and the extra compensates for the weak one, but apparently UNSW have changed their calculation method to not give too much advantage to outlier scores.

EtA: This is a particular case that I wonder if Samyang would be better off applying in the general pool rather than rural.

 

[ucatboy]

For UNSW a non-rural with 99.95+96%ile would have 2 strongs + 1 unknown going into the interview. Since UNSW uses a rurality rating and Samyang being so-so rural it's 2 strongs + 1 weak + 1 unknown. We can argue the 2 strongs are now extra strongs in the rural pool and the extra compensates for the weak one, but apparently UNSW have changed their calculation method to not give too much advantage to outlier scores.

EtA: This is a particular case that I wonder if Samyang would be better off applying in the general pool rather than rural.

Yeah I agree with the little difference between rural/non-rural pools - I said the same thing but edited that out of my message out of fear of sounding a bit too blunt. It's a shame (for samyang of course) that UNSW no longer allows exceedingly high scores in one area to compensate for another because a 99.95 rural ATAR (heck, not that many NON-rural people can get that ATAR) + 96%ile would have been a shoo-in for sure :\ Ah well

 

[zx72ksq8o]

UNSW no longer allows exceedingly high scores in one area to compensate for another

Hi mate, how is the system now different to the system used in the past?

 

[Crow]

Hi mate, how is the system now different to the system used in the past?

This post explains it well Quick Questions Thread #2: 2018-2019

 

[ucatboy]

This post explains it well Quick Questions Thread #2: 2018-2019

If it weren't the case, FunTimes would have already gotten in with his/her 4-standard-deviations-above-the-mean UCAT

 

[zx72ksq8o]

Still not sure if UNSW uses quotas or not, but I seem to be getting the idea that they only have 5-ish places for the EAS scheme?

 

[A1]

Still not sure if UNSW uses quotas or not, but I seem to be getting the idea that they only have 5-ish places for the EAS scheme?

Someone posted a few days ago a recently updated UNSW webpage saying they now give adjustment ATAR points to EAS applicants then they go into the general pool.

 

[zx72ksq8o]

Someone posted a few days ago a recently updated UNSW webpage saying they now give adjustment ATAR points to EAS applicants then they go into the general pool.

Ah yeah that was me, turns out it was only the general EAS page though

 

[A1]

Ah yeah that was me, turns out it was only the general EAS page though

Yeah I thought that was you haha.

The UNSW Med webpage, under Access Scheme, links to the general EAS page for more info. Hopefully that implies UNSW Med uses the same scheme.

 

[Totolier]

how does unsw choose offers (atar/ucat/interview weighting)
thanks