Med Sci without hsc chem (1 Viewer)

[nottellingu]

How hard would it be to get 80+wam without hsc chemistry?
Will the bridging course help much?

Does anyone know what sort of umat score you need to have a chance at the lateral entry into medicine?

Thanks

 

[Tim035]

It'll be hard, I'd strongly recommend a bridging course if you are planning to do well.

For lateral transfer, as a minimum you want:
80+ WAM
180+ UMAT
Successful interview

These can be balanced out a bit, for instance, in my year there was a girl with only a 76 WAM but a 210 UMAT who got in.




If you've got your heart set on medicine, but haven't made it into undergrad, I'd strongly advise you to do an undergrad degree that you could settle for a career in. Your odds of getting in the lateral transfer scheme in med sci are honestly about 20 to 1. Not to be pessimistic, but you don't want to find yourself also failing to get in to post grad med and then being stuck with a $20'000 Hecs debt and having to stomach working in a lab (if that really isn't your thing).

 

[nottellingu]

Thanks for the info

How hard is it to prepare for exams at uni compared to school? Do you still have access to past papers notes and all that? Ive been searching the websites and while i could find subjects you do + electives there doesnt seem to be a fixed syllabus...how do you prepare for exams...and how do you know what they can ask?

Re chem...ive noticed that they have higher chem and an easier version....would i be disadvantaged if i pick the easier one?

20:1? shouldnt it be like 10:1? Plus wont you have people who transfer after 1st year and those that get into postgrad med down the track?

Sorry for all the questions!
Thanks a ton for your help tim

 

[Rekkusu]

Tim is absolutely right from all angles - lol sounds lame, but its true.

Even if you do get into the lateral medicine program in UNSW, there is no telling whether you'll fail your "Summer Refresh Med course" - that's the course you do around Jan - Feb after you're accepted in your 3rd Year Med Sci to brush you up on everything that 4 years of MBBS u didn't do at unsw.

Plus, I really do not understand what you can learn in 8 weeks to ramp up enough clinical knowledge in the 4 years you do B Med Sci at unsw. Med sci is not an equivalent to mbbs. Science is not easily translated into medicine.

In real terms, what UNSW is trying to do is attract alot of Med Sci students to complete this degree at their uni, they've lost alot from Singapore, and this is their way to get it back.

You're better off going to Post-grad med if you can't get in via undergrad med.

Undergrad - 6 Years
Post-grad - 4 years.

So if you elected post grad med, in effect you're only 1 year behind the people who in your HSC year got into undergraduate medicine.

 

[nottellingu]

I can understand everything that has been said but i dont really see myself doing anything different at the moment. Maybe when im in 2nd/3rd year and not getting sleep because im trying to figure out where my job is going to come from things might be different.

I dont want to do optom,pharm or physio. I am interested in maths/law and was contemplating doing law/actuary @macq or law/comm @usyd but that would pretty much mean game over with med as the degree takes a long time and its very hard course to get a good gpa with. At the moment i am still very keen on doing medicine and i dont want to give that up just yet.
Having done 4u math, physics and bio i think i have a decent knowledge base for med sci...i need to brush up on chemistry but i have done yr 11 chem so with a bridging course hopefully it wont be too bad?

Looking at the med sci subjects they do seem very interesting and i think i would enjoy it but if i dont get into med down the path then i have no idea what i would be doing.

 

[Rekkusu]

True true back when I was 2nd year, I had no clue what I wanted to do!

But it will pay off if you think in advance a few years. It's scary to learn that so many med sci graduates really don't have good paying jobs until they complete hons and PhD.

 

[Tim035]

True true back when I was 2nd year, I had no clue what I wanted to do!

But it will pay off if you think in advance a few years. It's scary to learn that so many med sci graduates really don't have good paying jobs until they complete hons and PhD.

$70k / year is good money after 7-8 years of uni?