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Australian Medical school comparison

Griffith vs Wollongong

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

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

Side-by-side comparison

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.
Decision date
November

Wollongong

Wollongong

Quick comparison

Location
Wollongong, Australia
Entry pathway
Graduate
Admission tests
GAMSAT + CASPer
GAMSAT
Minimum 50 overall, no section below 50. Minimum 50 overall with no individual section score below 50. For 2027 entry GAMSAT is a pure qualifying hurdle: "GAMSAT score will not be used in ranking for interview or place offers once the hurdle has been met." International applicants may substitute MCAT (495 overall, no section below 123).
UCAT-ANZ
-
ATAR
-
Interview format
Live online Multiple Mini Interview (8 stations, live interviewers) — 2027 entry
Post-interview chance
UOW does not publish interview-to-offer conversion, and no official source supports a numeric figure. GEMSAS does record one qualitative pattern: "In the past, the majority of eligible Rural Entry Pathway applicants who selected the UOW MD program as their first preference in their GEMSAS application were successful in interviewing and receiving an offer to study medicine at UOW." That statement is specific to rural-origin first-preference applicants and is not a published conversion rate.
Decision date
October

Griffith vs Wollongong - in detail

Admission tests compared

GAMSAT cut-offs. 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… Wollongong — Minimum 50 overall, no section below 50. Minimum 50 overall with no individual section score below 50.

For 2027 entry GAMSAT is a pure qualifying hurdle: "GAMSAT score will not be used in ranking for…

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

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).

Wollongong requires Bachelor degree (AQF7+, at least 3 years FTE) with a weighted GPA of 5.5/7.0 or above at the time of interview selection — a minimum-eligibility hurdle, not a competitive score; UOW publishes no competitive GPA. GEMSAS weighting: final year x3, final-1 x2, final-2 x1.

GAMSAT minimum 50 overall with no section below 50 (international applicants may instead use MCAT 495 overall, no section below 123). Casper required. 8-station live online MMI. Rural Entry and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathways available.

Graduate-entry GPA. 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… Wollongong — Offers to applicants finishing a degree in 2026 are "conditional on maintenance of the minimum required weighted GPA of 5.5", and qualifying degrees used in the GPA calculation "must be completed by…

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 Griffith and Wollongong 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: 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…; Wollongong runs live online multiple mini interview (8 stations, live interviewers) — 2027 entry. Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Griffith interviews 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.; Wollongong in September — 2027 entry: the week commencing 17 September 2026, with interview offers released in early September. (International and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathway applicants are interviewed in rolling rounds from late March to late September instead.).

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: 4-year graduate MD, described by year (Griffith's documents number the phases inconsistently). Years 1-2 are campus-based at the Gold Coast (Southport 4-year graduate MD. Four-year graduate MD, each academic year about 42 weeks. Phase 1 (18 months) is campus-based with some community placements, at W

Intake size: Griffith — 2027 cycle: 208 domestic places (148 CSP + 60 BMP), of which about 80 are reserved for Griffith and UniSC Bachelor of…; Wollongong — 2027 cycle: 37 Unbonded CSP + 30 CSP Rural End-to-End + 27 BMP + 15 International = ~109 total (GEMSAS UOW).

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

Post-interview offer 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. Wollongong: UOW does not publish interview-to-offer conversion, and no official source supports a numeric figure.

GEMSAS does record one qualitative pattern: "In the past, the majority of eligible Rural Entry Pathway applicants who selected the UOW MD program as their first preference in their GEMSAS application were successful in interviewing and receiving an offer to study medicine at UOW." That statement is specific to rural-origin first-preference applicants and is not a published conversion rate.

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

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 accepted Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast offers are invited to be considered in early November 2026, and if places remain top-up offers may be made via GEMSAS; it is not open to Bachelor of Medical Science provisional-entry students.

Griffith's 2026 pages already show a small Toowoomba Year 1. Early clinical contact in Years 1-2 is through the General Practice Longitudinal Program and community placements; hospital rotations start in Year 3. Griffith also has rural (GURPAS) and First Peoples entry pathways.

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.

Wollongong: Wollongong was established with an explicit rural and regional workforce mission. A minimum of 55 of the 94 domestic places for 2027 entry are ring-fenced for the Rural Entry Pathway — 32 of the 54 Rural-Regional Combined Track places, 6 of the 10 Health Access Stream places and 17 of the 30 Rural End-to-End places.

UOW's bonus guide puts the realised figure higher: "generally 60-80% of students in each cohort come from a rural background."

UOW also runs a NSW Rural Resident Interview Guarantee: applicants with demonstrated rural origin in NSW who select UOW first in GEMSAS and meet all minimum admission requirements are guaranteed an interview — but only if they also apply for Bonus 1 and Bonus 8 on the UOW MD Admissions Bonus Form and nominate for the guarantee under Bonus 8.

Year 3 includes a longitudinal integrated clerkship in a regional/rural community.

Which is right for you?

Start with the admission test: Griffith needs GAMSAT, Wollongong needs GAMSAT and CASPer. Preparing for one well beats splitting your time across two. Check your state of origin before you apply — Griffith draws heavily on Queensland applicants and Wollongong on New South Wales, 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

Griffith uses GAMSAT. Wollongong uses GAMSAT and CASPer. 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 .