Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery admissions

Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery admissions

Applications for 2009 entry to the School of Medicine Sydney MBBS degree have closed and current applicants are being processed. Candidates considering entry into Medicine in 2010 should contact ACER to register for the GAMSAT examination.

The School of Medicine, Sydney will be holding several information sessions for prospective students during 2008 and 2009. Staff from all Schools at Notre Dame, including Medicine, will present information at these events. Interested students should email sydney@nd.edu.au for more information on these dates.

Specific information on applying to Notre Dame Medicine is summarised below. For further information please feel free to contact our student office on sydney@nd.edu.au to talk to an admissions officer.

Selection process
Candidates are selected for admission on the basis of 4 criteria:

The following is a guide to the requirements for admission:

Supplementary Information Form

  • Applicants must submit the Notre Dame Supplementary Information Form. The form should outline the applicant’s motivation to pursue a career in medicine and to train at Notre Dame. The School is seeking applicants with sporting, music, volunteer, group and leadership backgrounds.
  • Supplementary Information forms are submitted directly to the University Admissions office and are each read by two senior medical school staff members and ranked. The Supplementary Information Form is available below:


pdf

School of Medicine Sydney Supplementary Information Form
  • The Supplementary Information Form score forms a component of the score used to determine selection for interview.
  • Additional bonus scores are also allocated to applicants with a rural background or higher research degree.

Grade Point Average (GPA)

  • Completion of a prior bachelor’s degree (within the last 10 years) is mandatory. The degree may be in any field of tertiary study. A few exemptions may be possible under exceptional circumstances. If you wish to apply for exemption then please contact student admissions. There are no prerequisite subjects.
  • A Grade Point Average minimum on the 0-7 scale is not prescribed but forms a component of the score used to determine selection for interview. This means applicants would need to excel in all other areas that contribute to the total selection score if they wanted to be competitive for selection and their GPA was below 5.0.
  • The GPA is calculated from the final three full-time equivalent years of the most recently completed degree (see the Australian Council for Education Research site at www.acer.edu.au for information on how this is calculated). However, if students have completed post graduate or honours coursework study beyond the initial Bachelor’s degree, then these years are included in the calculation of the GPA as the most recent years of study.

Graduate Australian Medical Schools Admissions Test (GAMSAT)

  • The GAMSAT was developed by the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) in collaboration with medical schools.
    It assesses knowledge and performance in the areas of humanities and social sciences, written communication, biological and physical sciences. For information about GAMSAT contact the website:

      http://www.gamsat.edu.au/

  • Satisfactory performance in the GAMSAT means achieving a score of 50 or greater in each of the components and a score of at least 50 overall.
  • Notre Dame Sydney doesn’t prescribe a minimum GAMSAT mark, but the mark forms a component of the score used to determine selection for interview. This means applicants would need to excel in all other areas that contribute to the total selection score if they wanted to be competitive for selection and their GAMSAT score were less than 50.

Interview

  • Interviews are granted to those applicants who have demonstrated a high level of achievement in the three areas outlined above (each of which has a weighting of approximately 1/3 each).
  • Interviews are semistructured and undertaken by two trained interviewers.
  • Interviews cover motivation, group work, and communication skills.
  • Interviews last approximately 30 minutes. They do not involve performing tasks. They are verbal communication.

Offers for admission

First round offers are made in November. Offers are made on the basis of a ranked list of applicants with the ranking derived from a final score consisting of Supplementary Information Form score, GPA, GAMSAT and Interview with each contributing approximately ¼ to the final score.

Other requirements

Students will need to have completed

  • an Australian registered senior first aid course,
  • have evidence of full immunisation,
  • obtain State and Federal Government Police Clearance, and
  • obtain a working with children clearance before their final enrolment is processed. These are legal requirements mandated by State legislation.

Fees

In 2009 Notre Dame Sydney will admit 112 medical students. These places are only available to Australian citizens/permanent residents. The places are allocated as follows:

  • 80 Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) (of which 3 are medical rural bonded scholarships and 20 are bonded medical places)
  • 32 domestic full fee paying places

Australian fee-paying students will have access to FEE-HELP (Higher Educations Loans Program), allowing them to defer the up-front fees up to the current $100,000 limit.

Please note the admission requirements for CSP and fee-paying students are exactly the same with offers for all places made on the basis of ranked position after the selection process.

Postgraduate Degrees
Potential applicants should contact the Head of Postgraduate Research Professor George Mendz on gmendz@nd.edu.au to discuss their plans.