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Australian Medical school comparison

Deakin vs Griffith

Deakin and Griffith are both Australian medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Deakin is in Victoria while Griffith is in Queensland. State of origin matters here: several schools rank local applicants ahead of interstate ones. Deakin uses GAMSAT and MCAT; Griffith uses GAMSAT.

That mismatch means either preparing two assessments or choosing the school whose test suits you.

Side-by-side comparison

Deakin

Geelong

Quick comparison

Location
Geelong, Australia
Entry pathway
Graduate
Admission tests
GAMSAT + MCAT
GAMSAT
Minimum 50 in each section + 50 overall. Minimum 50 in each of the three GAMSAT sections and 50 overall, obtained within four years preceding the year of application. Deakin publishes the average GAMSAT of its commencing cohort, not a cut-off: 65.9 for the 2026 intake and 66.39 for the 2025 intake (Deakin course page). These are cohort averages, not thresholds — Deakin publishes no competitive or guaranteed score. General-stream interview shortlist: GPA + GAMSAT + adjustments, equally weighted. General-stream interview shortlist: GPA + GAMSAT + adjustments equally weighted.
UCAT-ANZ
-
ATAR
-
Interview format
Multiple Mini Interview (up to 6 stations, 5 minutes each; held online for 2027 entry)
Post-interview chance
Not publicly disclosed. Deakin interviews a maximum of 220 applicants for the roughly 145 domestic places (100 CSP + 45 BMP) available for 2027 entry; neither Deakin nor GEMSAS publishes an interview-to-offer conversion rate.
Decision date
Late October-early November (GEMSAS main round), with further offers through November, December and January

Griffith

Gold Coast

Quick comparison

Location
Gold Coast, Australia
Entry pathway
Graduate
Admission tests
GAMSAT
GAMSAT
Minimum 50 in each section AND 50 overall. Interview shortlist rank: 50:50 unweighted GPA (as %) + overall GAMSAT (out of 100). Final offer rank: 50% interview-selection rank + 50% GUMSAA interview score. Minimum GAMSAT 50 in each section (Griffith MD 5099 page), with GEMSAS additionally requiring an overall score of at least 50; scores must be no more than four years old at the time of application. Griffith does not publish an intake average — it publishes the median GAMSAT for a GUMSAA interview invitation, which was 69 for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 intakes. GEMSAS: 'there is no discrete cut-off point for GAMSAT.
UCAT-ANZ
-
ATAR
-
Interview format
GUMSAA — an asynchronous, one-way recorded online MMI delivered on the SAMMI (Scalable Automated Multiple Mini Interviews) platform, self-scheduled within a set window. Griffith's 2026-27 SAMMI applicant guide specifies 6 pre-recorded scenario questions with a 60-second break between each and roughly 1 hour allowed end to end (including sound/Wi-Fi checks and an upload of up to 15 minutes). There is no live interviewer. The guide gives the response time inconsistently (an overview stating 'up to 5 minutes' per question and a later page stating the station 'will last 4 minutes'), so treat per-question timing as approximately 4-5 minutes and check the guide issued for your own cycle.
Post-interview chance
Griffith publishes the ratio rather than a conversion rate: around 200 candidates are interviewed at GUMSAA for approximately 110-120 places (2027 cycle). Note places are not offers — top-up offers are made in later rounds to cover declines — and the final rank is a 50:50 combination of interview score and GPA/GAMSAT selection rank, so this is a cohort ratio, not an individual applicant's odds. The ~38% figure is not published by Griffith or GEMSAS.
Decision date
November

Deakin vs Griffith - in detail

Admission tests compared

GAMSAT cut-offs. Deakin — Minimum 50 in each section + 50 overall. Minimum 50 in each of the three GAMSAT sections and 50 overall, obtained within four years preceding the year of application. Deakin publishes the average… Griffith — Minimum 50 in each section AND 50 overall.

Interview shortlist rank: 50:50 unweighted GPA (as %) + overall GAMSAT (out of 100). Final offer rank: 50% interview-selection rank + 50% GUMSAA 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.

ATAR and academic profile

Deakin requires Bachelor degree (completed, or final year scheduled for completion by 23 December in the year of application) with minimum weighted GPA 5.0/7.0 over the most recent 3 FTE years; GAMSAT 50+ in each of the three sections and 50+ overall, sat within the preceding four years; online MMI.

The degree must normally be awarded within 10 years of commencement, though applicants outside that window may still be considered if they complete 0.5 FTE of AQF Level 8 or higher study by 31 July in the year of application.

GAMSAT and the 10-year recency rule are both waived for Rural Training Stream Tier 1 applicants, and GAMSAT is not required at all for the Indigenous Entry Stream. International applicants may use GAMSAT or MCAT and sit a structured panel interview instead of the MMI.

Griffith requires Bachelor/key degree with a minimum unweighted GEMSAS-schema GPA of 5.0/7.0; GAMSAT 50+ overall and 50+ in each section (valid 4 years) or MCAT 123+ in every section (valid 2 years); plus GUMSAA — an online MMI in Griffith's own terminology, but delivered as a self-scheduled recorded assessment rather than a live in-person station circuit.

Apply via GEMSAS (domestic) or direct to Griffith (international).

Graduate-entry GPA. Deakin — Minimum 5.0/7.0 weighted. GEMSAS weighting (Final-2 × 1 + Final-1 × 2 + Final × 3) / 6; each GPA year must contain at least 0.25 FTE of graded results and 2020 calendar-year results are excluded. The… Griffith — Minimum 5.0/7.0.

Griffith explicitly states "a GPA required for interview selection is likely to be significantly higher than 5.0". Minimum eligibility is an unweighted GEMSAS-schema GPA of 5.0/7.0…

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 Deakin and Griffith 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: Deakin runs multiple mini interview (up to 6 stations, 5 minutes each; held online for 2027 entry); Griffith runs gumsaa — an asynchronous, one-way recorded online mmi delivered on the sammi (scalable automated multiple mini interviews) platform, self-scheduled within a set…. Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Deakin interviews in September (domestic MMI, online, per GEMSAS). International applicants are interviewed in Deakin's own rounds instead — for the 2027 cycle Deakin published rounds in May, August and October 2026; round dates are set on Deakin's international course page and change each cycle.; Griffith in Late September.

For 2027 entry, a self-scheduled slot between 9am Mon 21 and 5pm Fri 25 September 2026 (AEST) — a single five-day window, not a September-October season. GEMSAS describes the window as tentative, so confirm before booking travel or leave. Offers of interview must be accepted by 9am Friday 4 September 2026..

Curriculum and teaching style

Deakin runs a PBL curriculum; Griffith runs a Integrated curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Deakin leans on small-group case-based learning from year 1, while Griffith uses a more traditional lecture-led structure.

Specifics: 4-year graduate MD with problem-based learning. Years 1-2 at Waurn Ponds (Geelong) for General Entry Stream students. Rural Training Stream students d 4-year graduate MD run in phases: Phase 1 Foundations (1.5 years) and Phase 2 Transitions (1.5 years) before the final clinical phase. Years 1-2 (Phas

Intake size: Deakin — 2027: ~160 total (up to 100 CSP + 45 BMP + 15 international + 30 RTS reserved subset); Griffith — 2027 cycle: 208 domestic places (148 CSP + 60 BMP), of which about 80 are reserved for Griffith and UniSC Bachelor of…. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Post-interview offer rate

Deakin: Not publicly disclosed. Deakin interviews a maximum of 220 applicants for the roughly 145 domestic places (100 CSP + 45 BMP) available for 2027 entry; neither Deakin nor GEMSAS publishes an interview-to-offer conversion rate. Griffith: Griffith publishes the ratio rather than a conversion rate: around 200 candidates are interviewed at GUMSAA for approximately 110-120 places (2027 cycle).

Note places are not offers — top-up offers are made in later rounds to cover declines — and the final rank is a 50:50 combination of interview score and GPA/GAMSAT selection rank, so this is a cohort ratio, not an individual applicant's odds. The ~38% figure is not published by Griffith or GEMSAS.

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

Deakin: Deakin was established as a rural-focused graduate-entry MD and remains one of the strongest pipelines into Victorian rural practice. Deakin's Years 3-4 clinical partners are named health services — Barwon Health (Geelong), Eastern Health (Melbourne), Grampians Health (Ballarat) and South West Healthcare (Warrnambool) — plus the nine-location Rural Communities network.

A substantial proportion of places are reserved for rural-origin applicants, with bonded service options. Years 3-4 are spent at one of five Deakin Medical School sites — Eastern Health (Melbourne), Geelong-Barwon, Rural Communities, Warrnambool-South West or Ballarat-Grampians — allocated in Year 2 by preference and place availability.

The Rural Communities site is the distinctive one: a 12-month Year 3 longitudinal placement following patients over time, at one of nine rural and regional Victorian locations. It is one option among five, not something every student does.

Griffith: Griffith's 4-year graduate MD is based at the Gold Coast campus (next to Gold Coast University Hospital) or the Sunshine Coast Health Institute at Birtinya.

A new Toowoomba teaching location carries 10 unencumbered CSPs from 2027, but it is not selectable at application — students who have already accepted Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast offers are invited to transfer in early November 2026. Early clinical contact in Phase 1 is through the General Practice Longitudinal Program and community placements; hospital rotations start in Year 3.

Strong rural (GURPAS) and First Peoples pathways — but neither is a separate interview stream. GURPAS gives competitive rural applicants priority access to the MD and does not itself make a place bonded; First Peoples applicants sit no GAMSAT and no GUMSAA at all, going instead to a dedicated panel interview.

Pre-interview ranking weights GAMSAT and GPA broadly equally; the MMI then carries substantial weight in the final composite.

Which is right for you?

Start with the admission test: Deakin needs GAMSAT and MCAT, Griffith needs GAMSAT. Preparing for one well beats splitting your time across two. Check your state of origin before you apply — Deakin draws heavily on Victoria applicants and Griffith on Queensland, and an interstate application often faces a materially higher bar.

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

Deakin uses GAMSAT and MCAT. Griffith uses GAMSAT. 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.