Charles Sturt (Rural) vs Notre Dame Fremantle

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs. Charles Sturt (Rural) — UCAT ANZ alone produces the ranked list that determines interview invitations, and it then carries 25 per cent of CSU's published final selection criteria against 75 per cent for the MMI. ATAR is a… Notre Dame Fremantle — no published cut-off.

GAMSAT cut-offs. Charles Sturt (Rural) — not used or not published. Notre Dame Fremantle — Minimum 52 overall + 50 in each subsection (UNDA averages the three sections rather than using the overall weighted GAMSAT). Notre Dame publishes the average GAMSAT of applicants OFFERED AN INTERVIEW…

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.

Charles Sturt (Rural) requires ATAR 95.50 hurdle (non-rural) or 91.50 (Rural Entry Admissions Scheme), 2027 entry; UCAT-ANZ sat in the year of application, used to rank for interview and worth 25% of the published selection criteria; a six-station virtual MMI worth 75%; REAS applicants verify ASGS-RA 2-5 rural residency via DoctorConnect plus a Rural Confirmation form; open to Australian or New Zealand citizens and Australian permanent residents only.

Notre Dame Fremantle requires General domestic applicants apply through GEMSAS (applications 1-29 May 2026, closing 5pm AEST 29 May 2026).

Bachelor degree at AQF Level 7 completed within the last 10 years of the closing date — or be in the final year of one; the 10-year rule may be waived where an additional AQF Level 7 or higher qualification has been completed by 31 July 2026.

Weighted GPA of at least 5.2 as calculated by GEMSAS over three FTE years, progressively weighted final-minus-2 x1, final-minus-1 x2, final x3, with no more than one year of credit below AQF Level 7. Unweighted GAMSAT average of the three sections of at least 52, with a minimum of 50 in each subsection.

A Casper score is mandatory — 'Applicants without a Casper score will not be considered.' Shortlisted applicants then sit an online Multiple Mini Interview. GEMSAS states: 'no considerations outside the published entry requirements will be taken into account. Strictly no additional factors, including but not limited to work experience, field experience, or other extracurricular achievements will be considered.

ATAR. Charles Sturt (Rural) — ATAR hurdle (2027 entry, CSU standalone): 95.50 non-rural; 91.50 via the Rural Entry Admissions Scheme. There is no Greater Western Sydney tier at Charles Sturt — the 93.50 Western Sydney resident… Notre Dame Fremantle — no published cut-off.

Graduate-entry GPA. Charles Sturt (Rural) — not applicable or not published. Notre Dame Fremantle — Minimum weighted GPA 5.2/7.0 as calculated by GEMSAS over the three most recent FTE years, progressively weighted final-minus-2 x1, final-minus-1 x2, final x3. Notre Dame's published average GPA of…

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.

Both Charles Sturt (Rural) and Notre Dame Fremantle 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: Charles Sturt (Rural) runs multi-station mini interview, online via zoom (6 stations, 8 min per station, scenario-based); Notre Dame Fremantle runs mmi delivered on a recorded (asynchronous) online platform for domestic applicants; a live online panel interview for international applicants. Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Charles Sturt (Rural) interviews in Late November 2026 per UAC (CSU's own key dates say November; First Nations panel interviews late November-early December); Notre Dame Fremantle in September-October (domestic GEMSAS route: interview offers early September 2026, interviews held September/October 2026).

Separate timetables apply to the direct pathways: Indigenous-pathway interviews commence from June 2026, and international online panel interviews run 18 May - 30 November 2026..

Charles Sturt (Rural) runs a Integrated curriculum; Notre Dame Fremantle runs a PBL curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Charles Sturt (Rural) delivers more didactic lectures with structured systems-based progression, while Notre Dame Fremantle centres learning around clinical cases.

Specifics: 5-year undergraduate program: Bachelor of Clinical Science (Medicine) + Doctor of Medicine (admission at AQF 7, award at AQF 9; an exit-only Bachelor 4-year graduate MD. Years 1-2 foundations and clinical skills at Fremantle with early clinical immersion. Years 3-4 are clinical rotations in public a

Intake size: Charles Sturt (Rural) — 47 Commonwealth Supported Places a year from 2026, after an extra 10 CSPs were allocated (implying about 37 previously, though CSU does…; Notre Dame Fremantle — 2027 cycle ~127 total: 80 CSP (60 Fremantle + 20 KCRMT Broome) + 32 BMP + up to 15 international + uncapped….

A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Charles Sturt (Rural): Charles Sturt does not publish interview or offer numbers, so no interview-to-offer rate can be quoted. Notre Dame Fremantle: Not publicly disclosed. Notre Dame publishes no interview-to-offer ratio for the 2027 cycle, and GEMSAS states that individual scores and rankings are never released to applicants.

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.

Charles Sturt (Rural): A rurally-purposed medical school that now stands on its own: the AMC granted Charles Sturt standalone accreditation on 13 August 2025, to 31 March 2032 and commencing January 2026, ending the Joint Program in Medicine run with Western Sydney University since 2021.

CSU aims to select 'the majority of students who are of rural origin' and reserves a minimum of 80 per cent of interviews for rural applicants, but there is also a non-rural pathway, and places are not universally bonded — the Commonwealth sets the bonded/unbonded split, unbonded places go to the top-ranked applicants first and bonded places are then allocated automatically.

Years 3-5 run through a network of nine clinical schools across rural NSW and northern Victoria, with students allocated to a single clinical school and returning to the same community each year. On 'first': James Cook University's program commenced in 2000 as Australia's first medical school based outside a metropolitan area with an explicit rural, remote and Indigenous mission.

Notre Dame Fremantle: Notre Dame Fremantle dropped its written Notre Dame Portfolio and replaced it with Casper from the 2024 intake — but the interview itself did not change: it was a Multiple Mini Interview before and after, delivered on a recorded online platform since 2020. There was never a panel format for domestic applicants.

— one of the heaviest CASPer weightings in Australian medicine (30% of pre-interview composite). The Kimberley Centre for Remote Medical Training (KCRMT), Broome, is a Commonwealth-funded end-to-end rural stream that took its first cohort in Semester 1 2025 — it is not a 2027 innovation.

It carries up to 20 CSP places a year; students spend Years 1-2 on Notre Dame's Broome campus and Years 3-4 in regional training hubs across WA in partnership with the Rural Clinical School of WA. Rural and metropolitan applicants preference it inside the same GEMSAS application as Fremantle; long-term Kimberley/Pilbara residents apply direct to Notre Dame.

Note the centre's name — it is not the 'Kimberley Centre for Rural and Remote Medicine and Training'. From 1 January 2026 Indigenous CSP allocation is uncapped (Commonwealth policy change). Two reserved-entry routes exist, and Notre Dame publishes a number for neither.

(1) Assured Pathway — a school-leaver route: applicants apply to the Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Doctor of Medicine (Assured Pathway) at Fremantle or Sydney at the same time and secure an MD place on completing the bachelor degree, provided a minimum GPA of 2.5 is maintained each semester; it is closed to anyone who has already commenced tertiary study.

(2) Priority Entry Pathway — a graduate route reserving places for Notre Dame's own Bachelor of Biomedical Science graduates (including double degrees) first admitted from 2024 onwards, first entering in the 2026-2027 intake; these applicants still apply through GEMSAS and must achieve a GEMSAS-calculated GPA of 6.0 or higher, an unweighted GAMSAT of 55 or higher, and a Casper score no lower than 1 SD below the mean.

Notre Dame states only that reserved places are 'distributed nationally between campuses and fee types in a similar pattern to the distribution of general places'; GEMSAS notes the published place numbers already include both — 'Quota includes assured and priority pathways.' No 40 / 20+20 split is published anywhere official.