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Australian Medical school comparison

Adelaide vs UWA

Adelaide and UWA are both Australian medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Adelaide is in South Australia while UWA is in Western Australia. State of origin matters here: several schools rank local applicants ahead of interstate ones. Adelaide uses UCAT-ANZ; UWA uses UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT.

That mismatch means either preparing two assessments or choosing the school whose test suits you. They also recruit at different stages: Adelaide runs school-leaver (undergraduate) entry, UWA runs both undergraduate and graduate entry.

Side-by-side comparison

Adelaide

Adelaide

Quick comparison

Location
Adelaide, Australia
Entry pathway
Undergraduate
Admission tests
UCAT-ANZ
GAMSAT
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UCAT-ANZ
UCAT ANZ alone decides who is interviewed (except Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathway and Northern Community Care Stream applicants, who do not sit it): Sections 1–3 carry equal weight, and Section 4 (Situational Judgement, reported separately on 300–900 and not part of the /2700 cognitive total) separates only lower-ranked candidates with equal totals across the other three. UCAT ANZ then carries 20% of the final domestic offer ranking, alongside Interview 40% and Academic 40%. Adelaide publishes no cut-off and will not comment on score competitiveness; the South Australian advantage is structural — a minimum 50% of school-leaver interview invitations must go to South Australian applicants — not a published score gap. For national calibration only (not an Adelaide threshold), the official UCAT ANZ 2026 sitting used for 2027 entry had a total cognitive mean of 1,964, median 1,950, 8th decile 2,220 and 9th decile 2,340 across 17,341 candidates.
ATAR
Minimum entry ATAR 90.00 (adjusted selection rank). Adelaide states that 'the actual ATAR required for entry is typically much higher' than the 90.00 eligibility floor but 'does not disclose ATAR cut-off scores from previous years'. Its published ATAR profile for Semester 1 2026 (ABP171 and ABP271) suppresses every figure as '<5', because almost all offers are made on ATAR plus additional criteria rather than ATAR alone — so no median, lowest or guaranteed selection rank exists in the public record, and figures such as 99.75 are unsourced. Adelaide explicitly does not publish ATAR cut-offs.
Interview format
Multiple Mini Interview — a minimum of six stations of 10 minutes each, one interviewer per station, held online over Zoom (2027 entry; Adelaide states there is no in-person, telephone or alternative-platform option).
Post-interview chance
Not published by Adelaide, and no admissions centre or Medical Deans report gives an interview-to-offer rate for this program. The only Tier-1 figures are approximately 600 domestic applicants invited to interview and 160 students commencing in Semester 1 2026 (28 of them international) — enough to show that a ~35% domestic conversion is unsupported, but not enough to state a rate, since commencements are not offers and the same interview also covers Dentistry and Oral Health applicants.
Decision date
January

UWA

Crawley

Quick comparison

Location
Crawley, Australia
Entry pathway
Dual (UG + Grad)
Admission tests
UCAT-ANZ + GAMSAT + ISAT + MCAT
GAMSAT
Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50. Scores are valid for four years as at the application closing date — for 2028 commencement the earliest accepted sitting is September 2023 and the latest March 2027. Applicants holding more than one valid score may use their best, not necessarily the most recent. 2027 interview shortlist: 60% GPA + 40% GAMSAT (both GAMSAT and GPA are standardised before shortlisting, and all scores are standardised prior to final ranking). Domestic applicants who were successful in obtaining an interview for 2026 entry averaged GAMSAT 68.53 (GEMSAS) — an interview-invite average, not an offer-holder average; UWA and GEMSAS publish no offer-holder figures.
UCAT-ANZ
Required only for the domestic Assured Pathway (High Academic Achiever, Rural and Broadway quotas), and it must be sat in the year of application — a score cannot be carried over. UWA publishes no threshold: 'There is no set minimum score requirement; the UCAT ANZ threshold is set by ranking within each quota each year. Minimum results from previous years are not published.' Ranking uses the cognitive total only — the sum of Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning, scored 900-2700 — while Situational Judgement is reported separately (300-900) and UWA 'reserves the right' to use it in future. Figures on the retired /3600 four-subtest scale are not comparable and cannot be ratio-converted to /2700. International school leavers sit ISAT, not UCAT-ANZ.
ATAR
Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum; Indigenous school-leaver pathway minimum ATAR 90, with the School of Indigenous Studies (or askUWA) as first contact. The Boola Boola Djinda / CAMDH route is the GRADUATE Indigenous pathway and uses no ATAR at all. TISC publishes no rank data for UG056 (Doctor of Medicine via Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) Assured Pathway) — both the minimum rank for consideration and the lowest selection rank offered are listed as n/a, because selection is not rank-only. The separate standalone Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) (UP056) ran 92.00 minimum / 96.65 lowest selection rank (2024 admission), 92.00 / 97.50 (2025) and 95.00 / 97.70 (2026).
Interview format
Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants
Post-interview chance
Not publicly disclosed.
Decision date
November-January (domestic: graduate offer rounds from November via GEMSAS, school-leaver offers on TISC timelines in December/January); international offers from late May and early August

Adelaide vs UWA - in detail

Admission tests compared

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs.

Adelaide — UCAT ANZ alone decides who is interviewed (except Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathway and Northern Community Care Stream applicants, who do not sit it): Sections 1–3 carry equal weight, and… UWA — Required only for the domestic Assured Pathway (High Academic Achiever, Rural and Broadway quotas), and it must be sat in the year of application — a score cannot be carried over.

UWA publishes no…

GAMSAT cut-offs. Adelaide — not used or not published. UWA — Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50. Scores are valid for four years as at the application closing date — for 2028 commencement the earliest accepted sitting is…

Timing shapes the choice as much as the score. GAMSAT is graduate-only and sits in March and September; UCAT-ANZ is mostly undergraduate and sits in July. A few schools run their own selection model with no national test at all.

ATAR and academic profile

Adelaide requires Adjusted ATAR / selection rank of 90.00 minimum (an eligibility floor, not a cut-off) + UCAT ANZ + MMI. The prerequisite is any ONE of SACE Stage 2 Biology, Chemistry or Mathematical Methods (or equivalent); high proficiency in written and spoken English is assumed knowledge, not a prerequisite.

The medicine program does not apply subject adjustment factors — only the Universities Equity Scheme.

Separate routes: a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathway (no UCAT ANZ; all eligible applicants interviewed), a Rural Background pathway (approximately 41 places), a Northern Community Care Stream (up to 20 places, no UCAT ANZ, SATAC codes ABP292 non-bonded / ABP293 bonded), a Higher Education pathway (minimum 10 places, open only to applicants whose sole tertiary record is at Adelaide University or an antecedent institution, with 1–2 years completed at a credit average / GPA 5.0), and a Work and Life Experience route via a competitive STAT score.

Adelaide notes entry requirements for this degree are provisional and subject to change.

UWA requires Assured Pathway (domestic school leaver): minimum ATAR 98 for the HAA, Broadway and Rural quotas (90 for the Indigenous school-leaver pathway) plus UCAT-ANZ plus MMI; for the Broadway and Rural quotas the minimum is assessed after applicable Broadway adjustments. Meeting the minimum does not guarantee entry — final ranking is interview 50% + ATAR 30% + UCAT-ANZ 20%.

Graduate MD: Bachelor degree with GPA 5.5/7.0 plus GAMSAT plus MMI. Assured Pathway subject requirements are Chemistry ATAR and Mathematics Applications ATAR (or higher-level mathematics), for the Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) / Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major that Assured Pathway students must complete; either can instead be met with a first-year bridging unit (CHEM1003 / MATH1720).

UWA labels them 'Prerequisites' on the Assured Pathways page and 'WACE prerequisite' on the major page but 'recommended' on the MD course page. English is a separate English-language-competency requirement, not a subject prerequisite.

ATAR. Adelaide — Minimum entry ATAR 90.00 (adjusted selection rank).

Adelaide states that 'the actual ATAR required for entry is typically much higher' than the 90.00 eligibility floor but 'does not disclose ATAR… UWA — Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum; Indigenous school-leaver pathway minimum ATAR 90, with the School of Indigenous Studies (or askUWA) as first contact. The Boola…

Graduate-entry GPA. Adelaide — not applicable or not published. UWA — Graduate Pathway minimum GPA 5.5 at the time of interview selection, unweighted, calculated over the most recent three full-time-equivalent years (3 FTE = 144 credit points at UWA), excluding…

Read every ATAR figure as a selection rank, not a raw score. Educational access bonuses, rural-origin uplift and Indigenous pathways all adjust it, so the published number is rarely the one that decides your application.

Interview formats

Both Adelaide and UWA use MMI interviews, so the underlying prep approach is the same — practise ethics frameworks, Australian health-system topics (Medicare, rural workforce, Indigenous health) and (for MMI) structured station responses against a timer.

That said, the specifics differ slightly: Adelaide runs multiple mini interview — a minimum of six stations of 10 minutes each, one interviewer per station, held online over zoom (2027…; UWA runs multi-mini interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants.

Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Adelaide interviews in November-December; UWA in Late September-early October (graduate MD, expected online); 30 November-11 December 2026 (domestic school leaver). International: main round May, second round late July/early August..

Curriculum and teaching style

Both schools deliver a Integrated-style curriculum, so day-to-day study habits will feel similar across years 1-3.

Specifics: 6-year undergraduate Bachelor of Medical Studies + Doctor of Medicine (BMS/MD; 3 + 3). Taught at the Adelaide City Campus (Adelaide Health and Medical Assured Pathway: 3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) with the Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major (TISC code UG056, UWA c

Intake size: Adelaide — Adelaide does not publish a total place count, though it publishes sub-pathway reservations (approximately 41 Rural Background, up to 20 Northern Community…; UWA — 2027 cycle: 206 domestic places plus about 40 international. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Post-interview offer rate

Adelaide: Not published by Adelaide, and no admissions centre or Medical Deans report gives an interview-to-offer rate for this program.

The only Tier-1 figures are approximately 600 domestic applicants invited to interview and 160 students commencing in Semester 1 2026 (28 of them international) — enough to show that a ~35% domestic conversion is unsupported, but not enough to state a rate, since commencements are not offers and the same interview also covers Dentistry and Oral Health applicants.

UWA: Not publicly disclosed.

Post-interview odds give you the clearest signal of how competitive each school is at the final stage — a school with a 60% post-interview success rate is structurally easier to convert than one at 25%, even if the interview thresholds look identical on paper.

What makes each distinctive

Adelaide: Adelaide runs South Australia's oldest medical school (est. 1885) as a 6-year undergraduate BMS+MD (3+3). Admission offer weighting: Academic 40% + UCAT cognitive 20% + Interview 40%. Strong rural pipeline via the Rural Clinical School (Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Mount Gambier).

Dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathway with no UCAT ANZ requirement (the former Wirltu Yarlu Access Pathway is not the route into this degree).

The University of Adelaide and UniSA amalgamated into Adelaide University on 1 January 2026, and the program now sits in Adelaide University's College of Health, School of Medicine; applications for 2027 entry opened via SATAC on 3 August 2026 and close 30 September 2026.

New for 2027 entry: a Northern Community Care Stream of up to 20 places (SATAC ABP292 non-bonded, ABP293 bonded) for applicants schooled in Adelaide's northern suburbs, ranked on ATAR or IB plus interview with no UCAT ANZ; applicants with any prior higher education record are excluded from this stream for the 2027 intake.

UWA: UWA is one of only a handful of Australian medical schools with a true dual-pathway entry: a 6-year Assured Pathway from school (3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) then the MD with one year of credit; UCAT-ANZ + minimum ATAR 98, or 90 via the Indigenous school-leaver pathway, + interview — the ATAR minimum is for consideration only and does not guarantee entry) and a 4-year Graduate MD (GAMSAT).

Both streams converge into the same MD clinical years. In year 3, 25% of the UWA MD cohort undertake their studies in a Western Australian rural setting, in hospitals and general practices from Esperance to Kununurra, completing the same curriculum in a longitudinal integrated clinical setting.

Dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entry routes: a school-leaver pathway at minimum ATAR 90 (first contact the School of Indigenous Studies) and a graduate pathway through Boola Boola Djinda / CAMDH assessed on GPA 5.0 or above and a one-day panel interview at the centre, with GAMSAT and ATAR not required. There is no Indigenous-specific MMI.

Which is right for you?

Start with the admission test: Adelaide needs UCAT-ANZ, UWA needs UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT. Preparing for one well beats splitting your time across two. Check your state of origin before you apply — Adelaide draws heavily on South Australia applicants and UWA on Western Australia, and an interstate application often faces a materially higher bar.

They suit different stages too: Adelaide is school-leaver (undergraduate) entry, UWA is both undergraduate and graduate entry. Your preference list should ultimately weight: which admission test you can realistically score well in, whether your state of origin gives you a bonus at either school, and where you'd actually want to live for four to six years.

Common questions

Adelaide uses UCAT-ANZ. UWA uses UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT. The test mismatch means you may need to prep two assessments simultaneously, or you can pick the school whose admission test you're stronger in. GAMSAT is graduate-only and sat in March/September; UCAT-ANZ is undergraduate-leaning and sat in July; some schools (notably Bond and JCU) run their own selection model with no national test.

School data reviewed by the NextGen MedPrep editorial team — last reviewed .