The medicine application process in Australia is highly competitive. Currently there are 18 AMC (Australian Medical Council) accredited universities which offer medical degrees. Similarly, to UK universities each medical school has a unique and scrutinising admissions process used to select candidates. The UCAT is used to “select applicants with the most appropriate abilities and professional behaviours required for new doctors.” The UCAT was introduced in Australia in 2019 to replace the previous UMAT Undergraduate admissions test used. Not all Australian medical schools require their candidates to sit the UCAT admissions test, however 14 of the medical schools are UCAT ANZ Universities meaning that it is compulsory to sit the exam in order to be eligible to study on these courses.
Each University has a unique admissions process. It is important to be aware of how the universities apply to weight and utilise your UCAT score. High UCAT score achievers should consider boosting their chances of receiving an offer by applying to medical schools that highly weight the UCAT result. If you do not score as hoped on the UCAT consider applying to the universities which use other admissions criteria or that have limited emphasis on the UCAT score.
In addition to how the University uses your UCAT score, there are several considerations to make when selecting medical schools. Using or creating your own comparison tools will help you to make informed decisions. Your medical school selection criteria should consider the weightings of the admissions criteria, course specific factors based on information about the content and delivery of the course and University specific factors such as the University location, size and facilities.
The table below provides information of how the Australian and New Zealand Consortium Universities use the UCAT.