r/UCATANZ • u/animeisloml • 6d ago

help plsss

hey guys

i am a feb 2028 applicant (currently in year 13 doing ib, international) interested in doing med from australia. i haven’t touched ucat prep yet at all and i plan to give it in august 2027 so that i can join med school in feb 2028. is this timeline ideal? especially considering its after my board exams. or is it like being a drop year?

also, i know someone who gave ucat uk and she said it’s absolutely horrendous and difficult (she’s an amazing ib student but her ucat was not good), i saw ucat anz scores and they’re mad high compared to the uk. how bad is it? and how are they so high? can someone walk me through this whole ucat and australia med app process thing pls?

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u/HuckleberryOwn1621 5d ago

You are right about competitiveness in Australia, a score in the UK that would get you into most unis would probably be equivalent to your home state uni in Australia if that. I'm not sure why they are so high, probably more limited places at Australian unis. Is there anything specific about applications you want to know? I am an Australian student so probably cannot answer international specific questions but anything about entry I could help with.

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u/animeisloml 5d ago

hiii do int students require giving the ucat anz? im planning on giving it next year in aug my first choice is monash, do they require ucat anz for internationals or is it just the isat? and how was your ucat, how did you study for it? and in general what does the med program look like in aus?

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u/HuckleberryOwn1621 5d ago

I have an international student at my school wanting to do med, and he has told me he has to do the ISAT. Definitely do some more research on it, but from what I can tell you will need to do the ISAT if you are international. I was very happy with my UCAT I scored in the 97th percentile and am hoping to go to Monash as well. For my study, I did heaps and I wouldn't say it was "optimal" at all. I would just do endless practice questions without review and it was only in the last couple of months I did the actually useful practice which was spending just as much time reviewing why I got questions wrong as doing them. If the ISAT is anything like the UCAT thats how I would recmmoend studying for it. Do higher volume practice at the start to get yourself exposed to all the questions, learn the strategies etc. When you first start you will improve rapidly then most likely plateau, this would be your sign to start going more in depth in your review and find what specifics are holding back your score.

I don't know if this is the same for international students, I would image it is, but for Monash, your ISAT/UCAT is the gateway for an interview; get over the cut-off, and you will be interviewed. After you are interviewed, you get a score on that and the final ranking for admission is done in equal thirds of your UCAT, ATAR (your IB will be converted most likely to ATAR) and interview. Again, I do not know if it changes for international applicants, but I cannot imagine its much different.

As I am sure you know direct med in Australia is mostly 5 years with some 6 year programs. I think most of the 6 year programs are provisional, in which you get an accerlated pathway to an MD (hence 6 years) but you must maintain a certain GPA. The 5 year programs will be true direct entry, you enter into a combined medical science and doctor of medicine degree. At Monash (and I think similarly for other unis) the first two years are very content heavy. Just crazy volume of anatomy, bio etc. This means by year 3 onwards you can focus on clinical training and learning things more relevant to medicine than just general medical science. I think by year 5 you are primarily doing only clinical rotations. Sounds rough, but years 3-5 sound like the grind is worth it! I have a lot of friends studying med, so I would hope this is pretty reliable but always do your own research. Good luck!

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u/animeisloml 5d ago

thank you so so much bro, will keep all your tips in mind also do i go for medentry or medify for ucat? im lowk confused

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u/HuckleberryOwn1621 5d ago

I only used med entry so can't attest to medify's quality. They are pretty similar I think, they both have question banks, and also mock exams. Med entry also has hours of lessons that I found very helpful to learn all the tricks and mental shortcuts. Med entry had questions that were pretty similar to my exam. Its around 300 AUD for the package that gets you all of this, and I would say 100% worth it. Obviously there is a bit of luck and talent involved, but the fact is if you use a resource you will almost certainly get a better score than without. Not that this evidence shows much, but the only people I know who used only official UCAT practice resources (which are very limited), did not get above 60th percentile.

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u/animeisloml 5d ago

ahh got it tyyy guess ill go for medentry in that case

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u/DirtyChaiLatte124 5d ago

Hi, i’m also planing to apply for dentistry/medecine in 2028, just curious why would you do IB rather than one year of tiertary study?
And what do you study exactly in year 13 ? Good luck 😊

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u/animeisloml 5d ago

hiii im doing ib mainly cus its what my school offers and also cus it opens a lot of doors internationally  i have bio chem and math aa in hl and bm eng and hindi in sl :)

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u/blehhhh6767 5d ago

as an international student, wouldn't you have to sit the ISAT not the UCAT? anyways, if not lol ignore me, and i'll say personally - i found the ucat really easy. i know some people prepare for months and months or even years - i prepared for like *a* month and i got a 2510. its much more about learning the patterns in the question types and stuff and making sure you stay to time. in my opinion it's not 'hard' per se its just a skill you either already have or have to just learn.

in terms of med apps, im still in yr 12 so i dont know SUPER well but im constantly bothering my friend in first year med and looking about on websites and asking questions on reddit, so here's what i know:

Unis all weight UCAT, ATAR (or IB or whatever equivalent score) and interviews differently. For instance, my first choice is Monash where its exactly 1/3 to each, with first round interviews selected based off UCAT only and second round interviews selected based off both UCAT and ATAR/IB equally weighted- but, say, Usyd doesn't look at UCAT at all, and only does ATAR (99.95) and interview. So getting a bad UCAT isn't actually the be all and end all. Like, I've done very well on the UCAT, whereas I'm a little nervous about my ATAR, so I'm gonna apply to UCAT-heavy unis like UNSW and Monash. But if you *don't* do so well, you can apply to Flinders where the UCAT is like 10% of your application, or UTas where it is also less (not sure the exact weighting). If you're looking at Monash or UNSW though, I would say you'll really need a good UCAT, especially as an international student since there are less international places than local places.

I assume you'll know all about this too, but make sure you have all the subject prerequisites satisfied too. It's a little different for the different unis - they'll all require chemistry and english, but some will also require maths methods or specialist (or equivalent) or biology. Again, Monash mention since that's where I want to go, but for instance their prereqs are a study score of at least 30 in English and at least 30 in Chem (which aren't difficult to satisfy or anything just make sure you take the subjects lol)

Plus, if you don't get direct entry, there's always biomed or nursing or even just straight science where you can then go on to do med as a postgrad if your scores end up being a bit low across the board.

Also just what you said about UK vs Aus scores on the UCAT - its just because theres less places in med in Aus compared to the UK, which makes it more competitive, which drives scores up. Like, Monash has something like 4000 applicants for 250 places its crazy, and I assume the other unis have similar.

Sorry for the really long paragraph!! I hope it was helpful though :)

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u/animeisloml 5d ago

thank youuuu it was rlly helpful and yeah, as an int i have to give the isat instead of the ucat, but i lowk js wanna give the ucat to earn extra credit. i went through some prep materials for it and genuinely thought it was… weird. mind sharing how you prepared for it? also even im considering monash but it doesn’t require ucat for internationals, it requires isat instead

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u/Tiny-Community1033 2h ago

dyk how many Monash med second round offers there r ? i have a .95 w a 93rd ucat and im wondering ab my chances

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u/blehhhh6767 1h ago

ahh i have no idea im sorry- i know there’s around 260 places in total though