Biomed People

[Slumdawg]

On a side note, if you are interested in doing grad med, then the course content in first year is very good and helped me get a pretty good score for GAMSAT.

so can you do the GAMSAT while you're in your second year? Cos the GAMSAT is kinda worrying me because it seems as if you do biomed for three years then if you don't get a good enough score on the GAMSAT you can't get into heaps of the graduate courses. Would you have to wait a year and do it again? I didn't know you could do it earlier hence giving you a shot in third year if you screwed it up in second year. (or did I read the post incorrectly?) Thanks in advance.

[iamdan08]

What do you mean by this? Biomedicine is the (and i quote) "preferred pathway" to the MD, and in my opinion is the best course you can do (as well as science with the right subjects) if you want to do graduate entry Medicine. Keep in mind that anyone with an undergrad degree can get into med (apart from the MD because of the prereqs), so anyone with a health science background is going to have an advantage over a lot of other Med hopefuls without this background, in both sitting the GAMSAT, as well as the early years of Med where people without this background have to learn everything from scratch.

It might be their preferred pathway for applicants to take, but they don't have a quota to fill or a bonus to give to people applying from the course. Perhaps saying it was in "no way" official was a bit over the top, since it is designed to help you get in, I just meant there's no formal benefit. (I'd love to be wrong though)

And sitting the GAMSAT...a science degree can give you the same grounding if you take the right subjects. Biomed is a really good pathway though, I'd recommend it without many reservations

Yeah, while there is no formal benefit at UoM, Biomed and science (with the right subjects) are the 2 best courses to do as an undergrad if you want to do grad med at any uni. At Deakin, you get a bonus for having done Biomed.

[Russ]

^^
yeah of course, doing graduate medicine with an arts degree would be a nightmare.

so can you do the GAMSAT while you're in your second year? Cos the GAMSAT is kinda worrying me because it seems as if you do biomed for three years then if you don't get a good enough score on the GAMSAT you can't get into heaps of the graduate courses. Would you have to wait a year and do it again? I didn't know you could do it earlier hence giving you a shot in third year if you screwed it up in second year. (or did I read the post incorrectly?) Thanks in advance.

GAMSAT runs once a year and you can sit it as many times as you want. Your results are only valid for two years though, so a lot of students sit it in 2nd year and 3rd year then use their best result to apply with. Melbourne weights your GAMSAT for 33% (from memory), so if you interview well and have a high GPA you can compensate for a lower GAMSAT mark.

[iamdan08]

On a side note, if you are interested in doing grad med, then the course content in first year is very good and helped me get a pretty good score for GAMSAT.

so can you do the GAMSAT while you're in your second year? Cos the GAMSAT is kinda worrying me because it seems as if you do biomed for three years then if you don't get a good enough score on the GAMSAT you can't get into heaps of the graduate courses. Would you have to wait a year and do it again? I didn't know you could do it earlier hence giving you a shot in third year if you screwed it up in second year. (or did I read the post incorrectly?) Thanks in advance.

No you read correctly. You can sit GAMSAT whenever you want, however the scores are valid for 2 years only. So you can sit it in second year and third year and choose your highest score to get into Med as both will be valid.

[Slumdawg]

wow. that's really important advice. I wouldn't have ever known about that from just skimming through brochures. I really thought it was a one chance GAMSAT which worried me quite a bit. Two chances sounds really great. Biomed is just sounding better and better. You guys are legends. Thanks heaps.

[Russ]

If you don't get an offer after third year, you can do an Honours year and sit the GAMSAT again. This also means that first year results won't count for your GPA, which is a blessing for a lot of people I know lol

[d0minicz]

hey yo i'm a first year biomed student
As Dan said, basically if you're into health sciences you will love this course. And yeah there is quite a big shock in semester 1 when new content is suddenly thrown at you, as i found with Chemistry. However over time i adapted to the workload and it began to fall together. I found that the subjects Biomolecules&Cells and Chemistry for Biomed correlated in some ways, which made it much more interesting to see how a certain biological system was represented at the molecular level etc...
Personally i'm not too fond of these first year subjects but i guess they must be done in order to understand 2nd and 3rd year.
The workload is quite heavy and it is much much different to vce, where u would spend ~1 week on a topic whereas you might spend 1-2 lectures on that topic in uni which i found hard to come to terms with initially. I just tried to do consistent work throughout the semester when i could, and did alot more during the swotvac period (b4 exams).
Overall i love the course, minus a couple of crap subjects in first year so far, which will get much better as pointed out by the other guys =]

[monokekie]

The increasing TER for biomed is a horrible thing. I wish it'd go back to 95.

+

[samuch]

What do you mean by this? Biomedicine is the (and i quote) "preferred pathway" to the MD, and in my opinion is the best course you can do (as well as science with the right subjects) if you want to do graduate entry Medicine. Keep in mind that anyone with an undergrad degree can get into med (apart from the MD because of the prereqs), so anyone with a health science background is going to have an advantage over a lot of other Med hopefuls without this background, in both sitting the GAMSAT, as well as the early years of Med where people without this background have to learn everything from scratch.

It might be their preferred pathway for applicants to take, but they don't have a quota to fill or a bonus to give to people applying from the course. Perhaps saying it was in "no way" official was a bit over the top, since it is designed to help you get in, I just meant there's no formal benefit. (I'd love to be wrong though)

And sitting the GAMSAT...a science degree can give you the same grounding if you take the right subjects. Biomed is a really good pathway though, I'd recommend it without many reservations

Yeah, while there is no formal benefit at UoM, Biomed and science (with the right subjects) are the 2 best courses to do as an undergrad if you want to do grad med at any uni. At Deakin, you get a bonus for having done Biomed.

what kind of bonus? and this might seem like a silly question but would this bonus also be given if you do biomedical science at monash or just biomed at melbourne?

[iamdan08]

What do you mean by this? Biomedicine is the (and i quote) "preferred pathway" to the MD, and in my opinion is the best course you can do (as well as science with the right subjects) if you want to do graduate entry Medicine. Keep in mind that anyone with an undergrad degree can get into med (apart from the MD because of the prereqs), so anyone with a health science background is going to have an advantage over a lot of other Med hopefuls without this background, in both sitting the GAMSAT, as well as the early years of Med where people without this background have to learn everything from scratch.

It might be their preferred pathway for applicants to take, but they don't have a quota to fill or a bonus to give to people applying from the course. Perhaps saying it was in "no way" official was a bit over the top, since it is designed to help you get in, I just meant there's no formal benefit. (I'd love to be wrong though)

And sitting the GAMSAT...a science degree can give you the same grounding if you take the right subjects. Biomed is a really good pathway though, I'd recommend it without many reservations

Yeah, while there is no formal benefit at UoM, Biomed and science (with the right subjects) are the 2 best courses to do as an undergrad if you want to do grad med at any uni. At Deakin, you get a bonus for having done Biomed.

what kind of bonus? and this might seem like a silly question but would this bonus also be given if you do biomedical science at monash or just biomed at melbourne?

It is a 2% bonus on your application. What most medical schools do is combine gpa and gamsat into one score, and then rank all candidates to base who they will give an interview on. The 2% is added to this combined score. Deakin give out several bonuses, that one is called "recognition of prior learning" and is given to anyone who has done a health science undergrad (including nursing, physio etc.). So yes, biomed at monash is also accepted. They also give bonuses for being rural, financial difficulty as well as a few other criteria.

[samuch]

What do you mean by this? Biomedicine is the (and i quote) "preferred pathway" to the MD, and in my opinion is the best course you can do (as well as science with the right subjects) if you want to do graduate entry Medicine. Keep in mind that anyone with an undergrad degree can get into med (apart from the MD because of the prereqs), so anyone with a health science background is going to have an advantage over a lot of other Med hopefuls without this background, in both sitting the GAMSAT, as well as the early years of Med where people without this background have to learn everything from scratch.

It might be their preferred pathway for applicants to take, but they don't have a quota to fill or a bonus to give to people applying from the course. Perhaps saying it was in "no way" official was a bit over the top, since it is designed to help you get in, I just meant there's no formal benefit. (I'd love to be wrong though)

And sitting the GAMSAT...a science degree can give you the same grounding if you take the right subjects. Biomed is a really good pathway though, I'd recommend it without many reservations

Yeah, while there is no formal benefit at UoM, Biomed and science (with the right subjects) are the 2 best courses to do as an undergrad if you want to do grad med at any uni. At Deakin, you get a bonus for having done Biomed.

what kind of bonus? and this might seem like a silly question but would this bonus also be given if you do biomedical science at monash or just biomed at melbourne?

It is a 2% bonus on your application. What most medical schools do is combine gpa and gamsat into one score, and then rank all candidates to base who they will give an interview on. The 2% is added to this combined score. Deakin give out several bonuses, that one is called "recognition of prior learning" and is given to anyone who has done a health science undergrad (including nursing, physio etc.). So yes, biomed at monash is also accepted. They also give bonuses for being rural, financial difficulty as well as a few other criteria.

thanks, so science with the right subjects wouldnt be accepted ?

[iamdan08]

No it is not, as far as i am aware. It is the actual undergrad degree the bonus is based on.

[samuch]

No it is not, as far as i am aware. It is the actual undergrad degree the bonus is based on.

ohk thank you for your help

[luken93]

just to confirm, if anyone knows, do kldys still get in on a 90?
I was told this when I received the award, but due to the high demand i wouldn't be surprised if they dogged it haha
btw, this thread has definitely turned my attention, i went off it for a bit because of the reasons shilayli suggested, but this reassures my passion!
Also, how many spots are open to graduate physio and med and what sort of gamsat results would you need to be getting? I'm presuming physio would be less than med, so if anyone knows roughly the scores needed for each?
Thanks

[iamdan08]

just to confirm, if anyone knows, do kldys still get in on a 90?
I was told this when I received the award, but due to the high demand i wouldn't be surprised if they dogged it haha
btw, this thread has definitely turned my attention, i went off it for a bit because of the reasons shilayli suggested, but this reassures my passion!
Also, how many spots are open to graduate physio and med and what sort of gamsat results would you need to be getting? I'm presuming physio would be less than med, so if anyone knows roughly the scores needed for each?
Thanks

I'm not 100% sure about the kldys. I was one, but i met the ENTER requirement back in the day when it was 95 lol. You'd have to speak to whoever is in charge of the prgram.
I'm not sure of the exact numbers for physio, maybe have a look on the website. As for Med, on last check there was about 300. It is hard to say what the cutoffs will be as the first round of Med students will enter the MD next year, so we'll get a pretty good idea of cutoffs around September when interviews are offered. Most medical schools would require a 60+ (~75th percentile) GAMSAT and 6+ GPA to be competitive. At some of the more competitive medical schools, such as Sydney, UQ and most likely Melbourne next year, you would want 6.5+ gpa and 65+ GAMSAT (~90th percentile). However there are a lot of people who get in with 55+ GAMSAT and 5.5+ GPA with a strong interview at schools such as University of Notre Dame (in fremantle and sydney), which is one of the less (bus still quite) competitive med schools.