Admission for Local Applicants
Applicants must be Australian or New Zealand citizens or Australian permanent residents and have completed a Bachelors degree, or be in the final year of their degree, either from an Australian University or New Zealand University or from a tertiary institution of an equivalent commonwealth accredited standard. Students admitted in this category must pay fees under the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Medical students fall in Band 3 of the HECS schedule and are treated as undergraduates. Permanent residents and New Zealand citizens should follow the links from this web site that specifically deal with these categories of student.
Admission will be based on consideration of:
* Score in the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT). Applicants will need to have passed all sections of the examination to be considered.
* A weighted Grade Point Average* (GPA) calculated from marks or grades in the Bachelors degree entry. The minimal acceptable score for admission to the Medical School will normally be 30 (out of a maximum possible score of 42). Bonus points (see section below on ‘Ranking’) will be awarded for one of the following completed degrees: Honours, Graduate Diploma, Masters or PhD. Other qualifications such as Graduate Certificates will not be considered.
*More advanced courses of study will be weighted more heavily than less advanced courses of study; see section below on ‘Calculation of the Weighted GPA’.
* Interview, assessed as satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
The GAMSAT and GPA will be weighted 50:50 to obtain a rank order of students suitable for interview. Based on recent applications, applicants with a GAMSAT score < 55 and a weighted GPA <34 are unlikely to be short-listed for interview. Applicants offered an interview must receive a satisfactory assessment for the interview to maintain a ranking for admission. Further details regarding the ranking process are provided in the section below on ‘Ranking’.
Details of the GAMSAT are available from the Australian Council for Educational Research (GAMSAT), the organisation that constructs and administers the examination.
Applicants who are in the final year of a Bachelor degree at the time of application may be offered admission, subject to completion of their degree in the year of application with an appropriate GPA. Where an applicant has completed two Bachelors degrees, but not as combined degrees, the most recently awarded degree will be used to calculate the weighted GPA.
Degree Older than 10 Years
Applicants who have completed a Bachelor degree more than 10 years previously will only be considered for admission if there is evidence of continuing tertiary study of a commonwealth accredited tertiary education within the intervening period. The GPA will be calculated using marks in the original Bachelors degree and not on those in a succeeding qualification.
Calculation of the Weighted GPA
To calculate the GPA the final mark obtained in each course contributing to the Bachelor degree will be assigned a numerical score (G) between 0 and 7, in a manner similar to that used by all Australian Graduate Medical Schools and detailed on the ACER website.
The actual score assigned depends upon the grading system used by the university awarding the Bachelors degree. For ANU graduates the grading practice is as follows: >80: 7; 75-79: 6.5; 70-74: 6.0; 65-69: 5.5; 60-64: 5.0; 55-59: 4.5; 50-54: 4.0; <50: 0. Ungraded courses (CRS) will not be included in the GPA calculation. The numerical score, G, will be multiplied by the credit points awarded for that course (U) to give GAMSA points.
For all courses in a given calendar year, and contributing to the Bachelors degree, the GAMSA points will summed and divided by the total credit points awarded for that year i.e. an average yearly GPA will be obtained.
The final weighted GPA, as a score out of a maximum of 42, will be calculated as the sum of the following components:
Three year single degree programs:
* Calendar year 1 courses = GPA (level 1) multiply by 1
* Calendar year 2 courses = GPA (level 2) multiply by 2
* Calendar year 3 courses = GPA (level 3) multiply by 3
Four year single degree or combined degree programs:
* Calendar year 2 courses = GPA (level 2) multiply by 1
* Calendar year 3 courses = GPA (level 3) multiply by 2
* Calendar year 4 courses = GPA (level 4) multiply by 3
Five year single degree or combined programs:
* Calendar year 3 courses = GPA (level 3) multiply by 1
* Calendar year 4 courses = GPA (level 4) multiply by 2
* Calendar year 5 courses = GPA (level 5) multiply by 3
The examples above relate to fulltime students. For those who have studied part-time calendar years will not be used. Instead each GPA will be calculated over the number of courses equivalent to fulltime study in a calendar year at the university awarding the degree, counting back from the final course entry on the transcript.
Calculation of the weighted GPA for applicants who are in the final year of a Bachelors degree at the time of application will involve extrapolation of performance at academic level two to academic level three.
Ranking
A ranking score for each applicant is calculated, based on a 50:50 weighting of the overall GAMSAT score and the weighted GPA. Generally the top 125 ranked students are offered an interview. Students of rural origins, as defined using RRMA codes, who rank between positions 125 and 140 may be promoted up the rank order into the top 125 in an effort to ensure that 25% of each year’s intake of students is of rural origin.
A small numerical addition – ‘bonus points’ - is made to the base ranking score for those applicants with Honours, Graduate Diploma, Masters or PhD. The size of the bonus varies from year-to-year and is designed to promote those applicants with one of the stated higher academic qualifications up the rank order by between one and five or six positions,. How far up the rank order an applicant is promoted depends upon how close their score is to those of neighbouring applicants; the closer the scores of neighbours the greater the promotion up the rank order is likely to be.
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