University of Sydney

[Katherminator]

Hi, I've never done this before -- gone on a discussion board before but I guess illgive it a try. My situation is complicated because I haven't been able to find answers. I'm an American student going into the IB programme in China. I go to an international American school. How can I get accepted into the faculty of medicine in USYD? How high must my scores on the final exams be?

Courses:

Biology HL

A1 English HL

Visual Arts HL

Chinese ab initio

Economics SL

Mathematics SL

any help will be great. USYD's website didn't assist me too much... :/

[laryxle]

USYD has a very limited undergraduate med course which is highly competitive. In order to get in, you need to get an ATAR of 99.95 which is equivalent to 45 and even then you need to do an interview as well and I think it is even harder for non-australians.

Also, for presumed knowledge they have Maths extension 1 for most medical degrees, Maths SL is nearly equivalent to this but you might need to do some more. It is strongly recommended that you take Chemistry (up until recently chem was a pre-requisite), AFAIK no courses have pre-requisites but it is very recommended and you would have to take a bridging course anyway, so I think it is important that you take chemistry (possibly instead of art?).

UNSW which is another good university in Sydney has an undergraduate medical program which is easier to get into, but you need to do the UMAT test and I don't know if non-australians can do this.

In Australia there are very few undergraduate medical courses and they are extremely difficult to get into, so be prepared to work very hard and even then it might not be enough.

Alternatively, you could do an undergraduate degree in medical science or something which doesn't require such high marks and this sets up entry for a post-grad medical degree which is much easier to get into.

[Katherminator]

Thank you so much but I'm only getting a fraction of this though I've done my own research with your information! So what exactly is ATAR? I'm guessing that 45 is the highest score to get for IB Diploma if I'm correct?

I'm confused however about your last paragragh...I was planning on receiving my ugrad degree in med science so how does this differ from above? I must have asked the question completely wrong...what I basically want to do is become a premed student in USYD, graduate, take my GAMSAT orMCAT whichver I decide to do and go into med school etc. What do I need to do to fulfill that?

I've also taken chem during my soph year.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Katherminator

[jmw]

Hey, one of my friends just started Medicine at the University of Adelaide, so I'll try to enlighten you on the topic.

Alright, so first of all Med is different in Australia compared to the US. Here, most Unis have a Medicine undergraduate program, where you go into Med directly from high school. Instead doing Med as a graduate (as in the US).

Secondly, to get in you'll probably need about a 99 ATAR to be safe. Now, an ATAR is the Australia Tertiary Admission Ranking, so it basically places you in a percentile of the population based on your year twelve results. From the current conversion rate (this may change) you'll need about an 43 or 42 out of 45 to get an ATAR of 99+.

However, all Med students must also sit the UMAT exam as an additional criteria for entry to med programs. The UMAT is basically just a logic/basic competency test, and if you study for it (plenty of stuff online) then you should be able to do well. The UMAT is seen alongside your high school result, so if you do well in it may assist your entrance to a program. Also, some unis have interviews, but this just to ensure that you aren't retarded/can speak English (don't worry too much about them).

So yeah, once you get into undergrad med, you are basically going to become a doctor (no grad stuff etc) and i think you choose an area of specialization later on in the course.

Remember, some unis are harder to get into than others, so apply to a few and see what happens. Good Luck!