So, how did y'all go on UMAT 08??????

[BA22]

I politely suggest that you lack perspective, as the UMAT does serve a useful purpose

Would you rather the expense of sitting an apptitude test at every university you apply to? No, and neither does the university.

You may call it a "feel-good" activity, but if one is truly brilliant at school, then there are ways of gaining entry without meeting a certain, arbitrary UMAT cut-off. The higher your ENTER at UNSW, the less your UMAT has to be, a UMAT of about 150ish is acceptable if you gain an ENTER of around 99.8, which should be a cinch in our easier secondary school, right? If you attain a similarly high ENTER for UAdel, they offer a later round of interviews for students with previously lower UMAT scores. JCU don't use the UMAT at all. So Singapore may have a more high-school academically friendly entry system (if that's even posible under a lottery system), but where would you rather go to med school?

Fairness is never guaranteed in selective based entry to a university course. You may beleive that UMAT courses give you "the edge", but often their own negative impressions of the interview stage produce students who beleive interviewers are out to trick them, and therefore spend the whole interview secind guessing the interviewers questions and themselves

My own UMAT score was terrible, but i will defend its use, typically the people who have the most to sy negatively about the UMAT are people who feel as though it hamper their own chances of gaining entry. You have to ask youself whether you are biased abou the UMAT, simply because it doesn't suit you.

I undertook 2 UMAT prep courses last year and saw one question that was similar to any of the prep course questions. I'm happy that you felt ready for the exam orsel, but many students are not. They are also releived of $400-700 for their "peace of mind".

[ganges]

u got 259? u call that terrible?

[orsel]

Well, just to start off with, and by no means am I offended or anything, but it seems that you have taken a subtle personal attack on me. I sincerely apologise if my earlier post appeared to express contempt or annoyance towards you; know that any negativity is directed towards the UMAT.

I politely suggest that you lack perspective, as the UMAT does serve a useful purpose

Would you rather the expense of sitting an apptitude test at every university you apply to? No, and neither does the university.

It's not the concept of the UMAT that exasperates me, rather that it is of extremely poor design. And this is something that can be fixed, all it would take is for ACER to scrap Sections 2 and 3 and stop reusing past questions.

You may call it a "feel-good" activity, but if one is truly brilliant at school, then there are ways of gaining entry without meeting a certain, arbitrary UMAT cut-off. The higher your ENTER at UNSW, the less your UMAT has to be, a UMAT of about 150ish is acceptable if you gain an ENTER of around 99.8, which should be a cinch in our easier secondary school, right? If you attain a similarly high ENTER for UAdel, they offer a later round of interviews for students with previously lower UMAT scores. JCU don't use the UMAT at all. So Singapore may have a more high-school academically friendly entry system (if that's even posible under a lottery system), but where would you rather go to med school?

My reference to it as 'feel-good' is in relation to the public image it creates, the whole notion that somehow it selects candidates based on good qualities, while there is in fact no comparison possible to see whether selecting candidates through UMAT is effective at producing better doctors, which is ostensibly the entire basis for the existence of the UMAT. If we aren't creating better doctors, then why should UMAT exist at all? To generate money for ACER? A lottery system at least guarantees fairness.
I'm not sure what you mean by asking where I would rather go to for med. I don't want to make any suggestion that Singapore is 'better' in its education system. Their quantity certainly trumps Australia's, but quality is another question altogether. Poor choice of wording in my previous post when I just woke up, my bad.

Fairness is never guaranteed in selective based entry to a university course? You may beleive that UMAT courses give you "the edge", but often their own negative impressions of the interview stage produce students who beleive interviewers are out to trick them, and therefore spend the whole interview secind guessing the interviewers questions and themselves

Rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

My own UMAT score was terrible, but i will defend its use, typically the people who have the most to sy negatively about the UMAT are people who feel as though it hamper their own chances of gaining entry. You have to ask youself whether you are biased abou the UMAT, simply because it doesn't suit you.

I don't believe myself to be biased at all. I have little, if any passion towards medicine(probably going to be third or fourth preference) as I am, by my own judgement, far too cynical for a career as a doctor. Perhaps you have noticed this?
I also have no idea how I went in UMAT. Thought I did pretty well but we'll wait to September for that. I guess this is a cue for us to stop the off-topic and agree to disagree?

I undertook 2 UMAT prep courses last year and saw one question that was similar to any of the prep course questions. I'm happy that you felt ready for the exam orsel, but many students are not. They are also releived of $400-700 for their "peace of mind".

I too only saw one similar question. But I know for a fact that reuse of questions occurs through forum-trawling references to past questions which have appeared in UMAT '08. It also seems that your own skepticism of prep courses parallels mine of UMAT?
Congratulations go to you for getting into your desired course, but frankly the process for medicine entry shouldn't be like this.

[BA22]

Again, i say you lack perspective, a lottery system is far more unfair than the UMAT. I'll agree that it's structure is not perfect, but you originally seemed to think it just should be completetly removed.

The UMAT rarely stops brilliant students from gaining entry to medicine, you don't understand the system, and that's my fustration with your arguement.

I don't have a problem with you orsel, i have a problem with the attitude you have towards a system which is proven, comapred to your complete lack of experience with actually undergoing a full selection cycle to medicine. The UMAT plays little role in the selection of students who are academically brilliant. You only consider my point of interviewing to be irrelevant mostly because you lack understanding of how the system works.

Again you misunderstand, i was not implying that Singapore medicine is inferior to Australia. My question related to whether you would prefer to undergo slection in a country that randomly determines if you have a chance, or a country where you are allowed to earn that chance


Ganges: my score was 5 below the Monash overall score cutoff, i got an interview through DRL

[orsel]

"Not perfect" seems a bit of an understatement donchathink?

The UMAT rarely stops brilliant students from gaining entry to medicine, you don't understand the system, and that's my fustration with your arguement.

I never stated anywhere that the problem lies in brilliant students being prevented from gaining entry to medicine. The problem is that we are paying ACER to create a useless test that purports to achieve something that no studies have proven. We just assume that it works. "A system which is proven"? By whom? By what research?

The UMAT plays little role in the selection of students who are academically brilliant.

Depends significantly on the university.

You only consider my point of interviewing to be irrelevant mostly because you lack understanding of how the system works.

I fail to see how interviewing is relevant to the fairness of UMAT. Even if interviews sort out the 'bad apples' why should an incredibly flawed test be allowed to play any part at all in the selection process? Pray tell.

My question related to whether you would prefer to undergo slection in a country that randomly determines if you have a chance, or a country where you are allowed to earn that chance

Of course I'd rather earn my position in a course. But, again, why through UMAT? Simply because it is impossible for the UMAT to be completely fair doesn't mean it's alright for it to be very unfair. Either fix it or scrap it. As I stated, there are things they could do to improve it, so why don't they start with that? I understand that any selection test will always have inherent flaws, the issue here is that these are not inherent flaws, they can be changed.

Again, let us agree to disagree. If you still want to debate the point then create a new topic lol.

Edit: Also, I realise that someone has to lose out with limited med places. It'd suck to just lose out by chance in a lottery system. But when you're paying millions of dollars a year to create a proper test and you get crap in return, that sucks 10x more.

[annie]

Not every other country has a selective test. Singapore uses a 'lottery' system.

That is completely untrue.
I know for sure because I'm from Singapore, and being the meritocratic society that is is; the National University of Singapore chooses their students based on A level results, performance in the interview, and certain selection exams. No lottery whatsoever.

[NE2000]

Hmmm....moving on from the Singapore topic....

The cutoff for Monash will be higher this year won't it? Because of the Melbourne Model. But then UniMelb will give you a place...all u need to do is get 99.90 lol.

Does any1 reckon particular prep courses helped them with the UMAT?

[chid]

Well I was just thinking... will the UMAT cutoff actually be higher becuse of UoM model?

Wouldn't almost all of the students who were accepted into UoM medicine have done the Monash interview? Meaning that the UMAT cut-off is similar but the other two selection criteria (ENTER and interview will be more important)

This is just an idea (I think it's more out of hope than anything else!) but is this how it should work?

[excal]

Using a simple supply and demand model, the answer is yes. More demand (students) and less supply (overall med places) will increase costs (UMAT mark cutoff). However, if Monash increases their quota for interviews as a result then maybe the UMAT cut-off may not be as high.

Some students who made it into UoM (with a higher ENTER and lower UMAT) may not have made it into Monash due to the UMAT requirement (don't quote me on this).

[Pandemonium]

Actually, that's precisely correct Excalibur.
UMelb had an ENTER stream for kids who got really mediocre scores for their UMAT but totally pooty tanged their ENTER. This allowed many retards who were purely choosing Medicine because it was the course with the highest ENTER to join the ranks of the elite.
Monash suggests that successful doctors should have a certain amount of people-skills thus and set a standard (ie. if you don't get an interview, don't hope that your ENTER will save you).
I am a dud, therefore I cannot make it into anywhere now.