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Australian Medical school comparison

Flinders vs Tasmania

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

That mismatch means either preparing two assessments or choosing the school whose test suits you. The interview formats diverge — Panel vs Interview — and the prep approaches for the two are fundamentally different.

Side-by-side comparison

Flinders

Bedford Park

Quick comparison

Location
Bedford Park, Australia
Entry pathway
Dual (UG + Grad)
Admission tests
GAMSAT + UCAT-ANZ + MCAT
GAMSAT
Minimum 50 in each section (a hurdle, not a competitive score). Flinders publishes the realised cut-offs on the MD course page: for 2027 entry the overall GAMSAT score cut-offs to be INVITED TO INTERVIEW were Rural Bedford Park 61, Humanitarian Visa Holders 60, Flinders Graduate 64, Flinders Graduate Reserved 64, and Non-Flinders Graduates/Non-Rural/Non-Humanitarian 76. SARM and NTMP cut-offs are not published because selection there is also priority-based. These are interview cut-offs, not offer cut-offs; Flinders notes they are 'based on the main round of interview offers' and will be updated if further interview offers are made, and that they 'are dependent upon the profile of the applicant pool and places available for each sub-quota, and therefore vary every year'. The overall GAMSAT score is calculated as ((1 x Section I) + (1 x Section II) + (2 x Section III)) / 4.
UCAT-ANZ
-
ATAR
-
Interview format
Semi-structured panel interview, normally approximately 45-50 minutes (NOT MMI); must be passed as a hurdle
Post-interview chance
Not published — Flinders does not release an interview-to-offer conversion rate. What is published is that the interview is a pass/fail hurdle (fail it and the application ends there, whatever the academic profile) and that, once passed, the interview score carries an equally weighted third of the final selection rank alongside wGPA and overall GAMSAT.
Decision date
Late October to mid-February (2027 entry: outcomes notified from late October 2026, with offers possible right up to course commencement in mid-February 2027; waitlisted applicants also notified)

Tasmania

Hobart

Quick comparison

Location
Hobart, Australia
Entry pathway
Dual (UG + Grad)
Admission tests
UCAT-ANZ + GAMSAT + ISAT + MCAT
GAMSAT
Previous-higher-education route: minimum score of 50 in all three sections of GAMSAT. Accepted sittings are the same as those used by GEMSAS, although the application itself goes direct to UTAS, not through GEMSAS. From 2027 the UTAS Bachelor of Biomedicine (M3X) quota also requires GAMSAT 50 in all three sections; the retiring BMedRes (53E) pathway required no admission test. UTAS publishes no offer-holder GAMSAT score.
UCAT-ANZ
No published domestic cut-off — UCAT-ANZ only separates applicants who share an ATAR, so there is no threshold to quote. UTAS sums the three cognitive subtests only (Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning); Situational Judgement is excluded. International applicants must reach the 50th percentile or above: on the official UCAT ANZ 2026 distribution — the sitting used for 2027 entry — the 5th decile (median) total was 1,950/2700 (mean 1,964; 9th decile 2,340; 17,341 candidates).
ATAR
Domestic: minimum adjusted ATAR 95 — explicitly the minimum needed for an application to be considered, not a guarantee of an offer (UTAS: "achieving the minimum entry requirements does not guarantee an offer of a place"). International: minimum ATAR or equivalent rank 90. UTAS publishes no competitive cut-off, median or lowest-offer ATAR for this course, and no ATAR/selection-rank or student profile is published for it on CourseSeeker.
Interview format
No interview in standard selection — ATAR-first ranking with UCAT-ANZ tiebreaker (Aboriginal Entry Pathway applicants are interviewed; UTAS publishes no format)
Post-interview chance
N/A — no interview.
Decision date
Mid-December (first-round offers to Tasmanian Year 12 applicants on ATAR); January (interstate Year 12 and IB applicants) — the pattern UTAS publishes on its application-dates table each cycle. International applicants are handled in four offer rounds across the preceding year (rounds closing 30 May, 31 July, 30 September and 30 November), with offers made within two weeks of each round closing.

Flinders vs Tasmania - in detail

Admission tests compared

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs. Flinders — no published cut-off. Tasmania — No published domestic cut-off — UCAT-ANZ only separates applicants who share an ATAR, so there is no threshold to quote. UTAS sums the three cognitive subtests only (Verbal Reasoning, Decision…

GAMSAT cut-offs. Flinders — Minimum 50 in each section (a hurdle, not a competitive score). Flinders publishes the realised cut-offs on the MD course page: for 2027 entry the overall GAMSAT score cut-offs to be INVITED TO… Tasmania — Previous-higher-education route: minimum score of 50 in all three sections of GAMSAT.

Accepted sittings are the same as those used by GEMSAS, although the application itself goes direct to UTAS, not…

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

Flinders requires Graduate entry (4-year MD): completed or final-year Bachelor degree (or One-year Honours) with a minimum Flinders-equivalent non-weighted GPA of 5.00; valid GAMSAT with a minimum of 50 in EACH section (normally valid for four consecutive intakes; international applicants may use GAMSAT or MCAT, normally 124 per section / 496 overall); a semi-structured panel interview of approximately 45-50 minutes that must be passed.

No prerequisite subjects and no 10-year rule. SARM (rural South Australia) and NTMP (Northern Territory) pathways available, plus Rural, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and Humanitarian Visa sub-quotas; Indigenous Entry Stream (IES) for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander graduates without a valid GAMSAT (applications open early November and close end of February).

Direct entry (6-year Bachelor of Clinical Sciences / Doctor of Medicine): Year 12 with a minimum ATAR of 95.00 plus UCAT ANZ, applied for through SATAC, no interview, and applicants must not have a record of study at higher education level; a GPA of 5.0 is required to progress into the MD component.

Tasmania requires School-leaver: minimum adjusted ATAR 95 (the bar to be considered — UTAS publishes no competitive cut-off or ATAR profile) + a valid UCAT-ANZ score, used only to separate applicants sitting on the same ATAR.

International school leavers need an ATAR-equivalent of 90 plus one of UCAT-ANZ at or above the 50th percentile, ISAT 170 overall (165 in each section), or MCAT 491 from the last five years; ISAT and MCAT are not accepted from domestic applicants. Applicants with previous higher education: minimum unweighted GPA 5.25 + GAMSAT minimum 50 in all three sections.

Year 12 English and Chemistry (within the last 5 years) are prerequisites. No interview in standard selection — the Aboriginal Entry Pathway is the one exception.

ATAR. Flinders — no published cut-off. Tasmania — Domestic: minimum adjusted ATAR 95 — explicitly the minimum needed for an application to be considered, not a guarantee of an offer (UTAS: "achieving the minimum entry requirements does not guarantee…

Graduate-entry GPA. Flinders — Minimum Flinders-equivalent non-weighted GPA of 5.00 from the most recent Bachelor degree to be ELIGIBLE to apply (2027 Domestic Application Guide). Flinders does not publish the GPA profile of… Tasmania — Previous-higher-education entry: minimum unweighted GPA 5.25 — the bar for an application to be considered, not a competitive GPA.

Calculated across all tertiary study at AQF 7 and above (the first…

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

Flinders uses Panel (Semi-structured panel interview, normally approximately 45-50 minutes (NOT MMI); must be passed as a hurdle); Tasmania uses Interview (No interview in standard selection — ATAR-first ranking with UCAT-ANZ tiebreaker (Aboriginal Entry Pathway applicants are interviewed; UTAS publishes no format)).

These two formats reward different skills — Panel emphasises narrative coherence and the ability to develop a thread under follow-up questioning, while Interview rewards malleability and intellectual honesty.

If your strengths lie in conversational depth, Flinders may suit you more. If you prefer discrete capsule answers under time pressure, either is the better fit.

Interview windows: Flinders interviews in 2027 entry: SA interviews 21 September - 2 October 2026; NT interviews 21-24 September 2026. Flinders notes the interview timeline may change for the 2026-2027 admission cycle.; Tasmania in No interview (standard entry). Aboriginal Entry Pathway applicants are interviewed by representatives of the Medicine Admissions Committee; UTAS does not publish an interview window..

Curriculum and teaching style

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

Specifics: 4-year graduate MD organised around domains of medical practice — health and illness, the doctor-patient relationship, health and society, professiona 5-year undergraduate Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine (course code H3X; minimum 5 years, maximum 7; AQF level 7; 500 credit points —

Intake size: Flinders — Flinders does not publish a single total MD intake figure; the intake is assembled from Bedford Park (Flinders Graduates max 75%, Non-Flinders…; Tasmania — UTAS does not publish a total intake for the BMedScMD, and no ATAR/selection-rank or student profile is published for the course on….

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

Post-interview offer rate

Flinders: Not published — Flinders does not release an interview-to-offer conversion rate. What is published is that the interview is a pass/fail hurdle (fail it and the application ends there, whatever the academic profile) and that, once passed, the interview score carries an equally weighted third of the final selection rank alongside wGPA and overall GAMSAT.

Tasmania: N/A — no interview.

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

Flinders: Flinders runs one of Australia's first graduate-entry medical program in Australia (the medical school opened in 1974 with an intake of 64; four-year graduate entry followed in 1996) with a case-based, domain-organised curriculum, a semi-structured panel interview of approximately 45-50 minutes (not MMI), and a flagship Northern Territory Medical Program (NTMP).

The NT Government funds NTMP tuition under the NT Bonded Medical Scheme in exchange for a return-of-service commitment to work in the Northern Territory for at least two years after graduation; Flinders states that this return of service cannot be transferred to South Australia.

NTMP cumulative output 251 graduates since 2011 (10% Indigenous); Flinders reports 88% of its NT medical graduates are Territorians and more than half go on to practise in the NT (February 2026).

Tasmania: Tasmania is the only medical school in the state, and from 2026 it runs at all three campuses — Hobart, Launceston and Cradle Coast (Burnie) — with applicants ranked and offers made separately against each campus.

Residency, not a stratospheric ATAR, is the dominant lever: at least 75% of domestic places go to Tasmanians, 50% to rural MM2-7 applicants including 25% from MM3-7, and the Rural Application Process adds 4 ATAR points for MM2 and 5 for MM3-7 Year 12 leavers. The minimum adjusted ATAR is 95 and UTAS publishes no cut-off or student profile.

Twenty places sit in the Tasmanian Rural Training Stream at Cradle Coast. The Aboriginal Entry Pathway waives the clinical aptitude test (UCAT or GAMSAT) but adds a personal supporting statement and an interview with representatives of the Medicine Admissions Committee.

Which is right for you?

Start with the admission test: Flinders needs GAMSAT, UCAT-ANZ and MCAT, Tasmania 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 — Flinders draws heavily on South Australia applicants and Tasmania on Tasmania, 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

Flinders uses GAMSAT, UCAT-ANZ and MCAT. Tasmania 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 .