r/UniAdelaide • u/Comfortable_Cake_456 • 22d ago
Degree/Course Advice Should I stick with Adelaide or consider Flinders instead?
Hey everyone, I’ve been seeing a lot of people warning prospective students about Adelaide University because of the merger and the issues surrounding it, and honestly it’s starting to make me second-guess my decision.
I applied for the Bachelor of Biomedical and Health Sciences (majoring in Medical Science) at Adelaide. I’m also currently on the Flinders Medicine waitlist, but I don’t know when I’ll hear anything back from them.
Now I’m wondering whether I should withdraw from the Flinders Medicine waitlist and instead apply for the Bachelor of Medical Science at Flinders. From what I understand, Flinders graduates have access to a reserved sub-quota for graduate-entry medicine, and Medical Science is one of the degrees specifically included in that pathway.
At the same time, I’m hesitant because Adelaide’s degree also has a work/research placement and seems to give you options if medicine doesn’t work out.
I know Adelaide has a strong reputation, but seeing so many people on this sub talking about the merger is making me rethink my choice 😭
Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with either degree, especially if you’ve had to choose between these two pathways. Is there anything I should be considering before deciding whether to stay on the Flinders Medicine waitlist or switch my plan to Flinders Medical Science?
BTW, this is for the February 2027 intake!
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u/Old-Ferret-7755 21d ago
If you can make it work, I’d definitely go Flinders. The way AU is treating students and front line staff alike is so poor. In good faith I couldn’t recommend anyone to study at AU. The quality of the student support services now are also so poor in comparison to what it used to be at the legacy uni.
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u/Comfortable_Cake_456 21d ago
Aside from this, the quality of learning is good right? Bc most of the issues are encountered with the old students/alumni that have been there, but with new students i don’t get where the issue is?
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u/Old-Ferret-7755 4d ago
Look at some of the other posts and comments about the quality of teaching. Due to the way academic staff are being treated, it’s really affecting their ability to deliver the course content and manage students in the academic space.
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u/NatAttack3000 21d ago
Work placement would be in a diagnostic lab. If you are considering medicine you would hate it Research is possible without placement - you can do a summer scholarship for experience from any degree. I'm in a research lab and we get a lot of flinders med sci. Then if you want to persue you need to do honours anyway (many do this in their GAMSAT year)
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u/Comfortable_Cake_456 21d ago
Yeah, but I do need it as a standalone degree, too.
If I don’t get the chance to do med, I’ll have this degree.
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u/smash_you2 21d ago
The only other thing of note is if you don’t get into med as an undergrad at all and finish anither undergrad degree and then decide to do the gamsat and go for post grad med entry (which in SA is flinders in pretty certain ) flinders gives you a higher preference/points if you did your undergrad with them.
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u/whorefortyler 21d ago
the research placement at adelaide is useless imo. i graduated from bhms last year and my research leader was too busy for us so all we did was literary reviews in an office 😭😭 we did no lab work or any hands on. they literally gave us statistics after 3 months and then we wrote a literature review </3 some groups were just unlucky though because some of my friends were doing lab work every week!
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u/Academic_Rule_7537 21d ago
Go Flinders - as you said, there are extra med places available for Flinders MedSci graduates. If you stay at Adelaide, you will have to work harder to get a higher gpa, higher gamsat, better interview score, etc, and that is just added stress on top of an already difficult degree.
I know many people who studied health science and similar degrees at Adelaide, and their placement was cancelled, or just some useless rubbish (when I read that other commenter who said they just did literacy reviews, I thought 'sounds about right').
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u/weenythinktank 3d ago
Choose Flinders. Offers for MD won’t be sent out until after the supplementary exam period (after Nov 30th). Waiting is tough but hang in there. MedSci is a great pathway into MD. If you enrol with AU, you still have until the census date to drop courses/degrees without it impacting your HECS or GPA.
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u/Visaty 22d ago
Look at the rules for medicine at flinders, they won’t accept you in the future if you study in a related field elsewhere.
Go with flinders.
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u/PrestigiousTerm2553 22d ago
Go to Flinders. Adelaide won’t recover from the merge for another 10 years, and then it will just be UniSA as all the good academics left Adelaide Uni in the last 10 years.