Admission for Local Students

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); students 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 will normally require an average performance at credit level or better. Bonus points 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 ‘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, students with a GAMSAT score of less then 55 are unlikely to be short listed for interview.

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 Bachelors 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.

Applicants who have completed a Bachelors 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.

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.

Calculation of the Weighted GPA :

To calculate the GPA the final mark obtained in each course contributing to the Bachelors 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 full-time 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 full-time study in a calendar year at the university awarding the degree, counting back from the final course entry on the transcript. 

The minimal acceptable score for admission to the Medical School will normally be 30. Based on recent applications a score of less than 34 is unlikely to be sufficient to be short-listed for interview.

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.

Bonus Points

The bonus points awarded for applicants who have an Honours, Graduate Certificate, Masters or PhD degree will be small and will be determined after applications have been received. The general principle that the Medical School will follow is that students without such degrees will still have a very good chance of gaining admission.