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JPM WSU/CSU JPM: UCAT Section Weighting Discussion and Questions

Oh that makes sense, thanks for letting me know! I unfortunately still don't understand the UCAT and med school applications haha
 
For the uninitiated newbies most UCAT med schools use the unweighted overall score, whereas WSU say the sections are differently weighted.

We figured out VR is much more heavily weighted through these two sets of scores:
(1) 830/700/640/610 = 2780 86th %ile got an interview
(2) 630/750/900/830 = 3110 98th %ile didn't get an invite.

It pointed to the contrast of their VRs. Through trial/error I found the formula 5VR + DM + QR + 1.5AR fitted almost all Yes/No cases. To reduce it to a weighted average out of 900 we divide this by the total weights 8.5, thus (VR:58%, DM:12%, QR:12% and AR:18%).
 
A1 said:
For the uninitiated newbies most UCAT med schools use the unweighted overall score, whereas WSU say the sections are differently weighted.

We figured out VR is much more heavily weighted through these two sets of scores:
(1) 830/700/640/610 = 2780 86th %ile got an interview
(2) 630/750/900/830 = 3110 98th %ile didn't get an invite.

It pointed to the contrast of their VRs. Through trial/error I found the formula 5VR + DM + QR + 1.5AR fitted almost all Yes/No cases. To reduce it to a weighted average out of 900 we divide this by the total weights 8.5, thus (VR:58%, DM:12%, QR:12% and AR:18%).
Click to expand...
According to my calculations, if we use last year's 750.2 as the cutoff, the lowest possible score to still get an interview invite would be 2370 (30%ile).

VR: 900
DM: 300
QR: 300
AR: 870
Total: 2370
WSU weighted total: 750.6

Conversely, it was possible to score 3340 (99.7%ile, 44th/14,000) and still miss out on an interview offer:

VR: 640
DM: 900
QR: 900
AR: 900
Total 3340
WSU weighted total: 749.2

I'm actually quite shocked by how the numbers turned out to be honest, I knew VR was important but I didn't realise that it had gotten to a point where perfect scores in three sections can't make up for a 640 VR (which isn't even a bad score - 81%ile).
 
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ucatboy said:
According to my calculations, if we use last year's 750.2 as the cutoff, the lowest possible score to still get an interview invite would be 2370 (30%ile)...
Click to expand...
I'm really curious - does anyone know why WSU specifically prioritizes VR? Has WSU conducted some sort of study that shows that VR performance (or other reading ability) is associated with success as either a medical student or doctor? But if this were the case, then you'd expect some other universities to also place extra weighting on the VR component. Overall a very strange system.
 
minecraft4ever said:
I'm really curious - does anyone know why WSU specifically prioritizes VR? Has WSU conducted some sort of study that shows that VR performance (or other reading ability) is associated with success as either a medical student or doctor? But if this were the case, then you'd expect some other universities to also place extra weighting on the VR component. Overall a very strange system.
Click to expand...
I think it's more the role of the interview to see if a student has the right characteristics, motivation, interpersonal skills etc to do medicine. UCAT is supposedly an aptitude test but is largely a method to prune the applicants down to a manageable number to interview, so the schools can set the weightings whichever way they like (it was like that with UMAT too - JMP Section 1, UTas S2, WSU/Flinders S1+S2, the rest all 3 sections).

Btw it's my sarcastic view that WSU chooses such strange weightings to avoid selecting a duplicate set of UNSW interviewees haha.
 
tommy987 said:
That would be above a 99% percentile VR score, and there wouldn’t be enough successful applicants to fill interview spots if that was the case
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Lmao you're not wrong, statistically, getting a 820 VR score last year put you in the 99.958th percentile. By contrast, getting a 3520 overall score, the highest recorded last score last year, also put you in the 99.958th percentile. 820 VR = 3520 overall lmao
 
LMG! said:
JPM is very unlikely if things go as they did last year (750 was required and the movement with scores suggests this year it could even be 760 or 770).
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Oh man :oops: . Looking at the movement in scores this year, can you hazard a guess as to what the possible WSU formula total for GWS applicants might shift to this year? Thks.
 
Purplefolly said:
Oh man :oops: . Looking at the movement in scores this year, can you hazard a guess as to what the possible WSU formula total for GWS applicants might shift to this year? Thks.
Click to expand...
There is a post somewhere else (not actually sure where) where the user did some calculations and predicted a ~10-20 point shift in each category, from memory. It might have been ucatboy or dotwingz.

JPM has only been around for a year, though, so we don’t have any consistent data. It’s all just speculation at this stage.
 
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