Macquarie vs UQ

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs. Macquarie — no published cut-off. UQ — Required for Provisional Entry (school-leaver) and for the new 6-year BMedSc/MD direct-entry dual; must be sat in the year you apply. Latest published figures are for the 2026 intake: the lowest UCAT…

GAMSAT cut-offs. Macquarie — Minimum 50 overall, 50 in each section. Used at 50% weight (alongside 50% GPA) for interview shortlist. Minimum 50 overall and 50 in each of the three sections, sat within four years of intended… UQ — Minimum 50 in each of Sections I, II, III (any section below 50 = ineligible).

Interview shortlist: 50% unweighted GAMSAT (mean of 3 sections) + 50% GPA, GPA as tiebreaker. Final offer: UQ does 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.

Macquarie requires AQF Level 7 bachelor degree (or NOOSR-recognised equivalent) completed within 10 years of intended enrolment; minimum weighted GPA 5.0/7.0, or WAM 65, to be considered for interview; GAMSAT minimum 50 overall AND 50 in each of the three sections, sat within four years of intended enrolment (domestic applicants and international applicants residing in Australia or New Zealand) — international applicants residing outside Australia may submit MCAT 500+ instead, within three years; satisfactory Multiple Mini Interview performance; IELTS 7.0 overall with 7.0 in every band where English proficiency is not met through prior study.

Human anatomy and human physiology are assumed knowledge, not prerequisites. Macquarie states that "interview opportunity and offers are competitive, meeting minimum requirements does not guarantee offer of admission". (2027 entry.).

UQ requires Graduate entry: bachelor (key degree) completed in the last 10 years with minimum GPA 5.0/7.0; GAMSAT minimum 50 in EACH section (no overall threshold is published), or MCAT 504, taken within 4 years before you commence; 8-station online MMI.

UQ also assumes — but does not require as a prerequisite — prior tertiary study in cell and tissue biology and systems physiology (UQ BIOM2011 and BIOM2012, or equivalent). Provisional entry instead needs an adjusted ATAR 95, Queensland Year 12 English, a UCAT ANZ score from the year you apply, and the MMI.

ATAR. Macquarie — no published cut-off. UQ — Adjusted ATAR 95 (or equivalent) is the published MINIMUM for both school-leaver routes — provisional entry (QTAC 721302 / 721402) and the 6-year BMedSc/MD dual (QTAC 721502) — and meeting it…

Graduate-entry GPA. Macquarie — Minimum 5.0/7.0 (or WAM 65). Minimum weighted GPA 5.0/7.0, or WAM 65, to be considered for interview; weighted 50% for the shortlist and 50% again for the offer. GEMSAS notes only that "entry is… UQ — Minimum 5.0/7.0 in key degree.

Currency rule: degrees > 10 years before commencement require ≥ 0.50 FTE subsequent coursework at GPA ≥ 5.0.

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.

Both Macquarie and UQ 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: Macquarie runs multiple mini interview — macquarie's published 2027 admission guides describe four short stations of up to 8 minutes each, with a different…; UQ runs multi-mini interview (8 stations). Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Macquarie interviews in Domestic: one fixed Saturday — 26 September 2026 for 2027 entry, face-to-face on the Macquarie campus (no alternative date or online option). International: three videoconference rounds in June, August and October 2026 (Macquarie's 2027 international guide timeline graphic says July, August and October, inconsistently with its own requirements table).

Indigenous Australian Pathway: July, August or October, in person or online.; UQ in Graduate (GEMSAS): mid-September 2026 for 2027 entry. Graduate direct/MCAT: w/b 13 July 2026 (Round 1) or w/b 14 September 2026 (Round 2). Provisional entry and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander provisional pathway: mid-late November 2026..

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

Specifics: 4-year MD taught within Macquarie University Health; foundations and systems-based units in years 1-2, core clinical placements in year 3 and advanced 4-year graduate MD. Years 1-2 foundations and clinical skills at the Herston Health Sciences precinct. Years 3-4 clinical placements distributed acros

Intake size: Macquarie — 2027: ~60 full-fee domestic + ~20 international; UQ — 2027 graduate intake: 107 CSP + 43 BMP + up to 190 international = up to 340 across the GEMSAS graduate route…. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Macquarie: Not published — Macquarie releases no interview-to-offer conversion data, and no admissions centre or accredited body publishes one for this programme. UQ: Not published. Neither UQ, GEMSAS nor QTAC publishes the number of MMI invitations issued or an interview-to-offer conversion rate for the UQ MD. Treat any quoted percentage as an unsourced estimate.

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.

Macquarie: Every place in the Macquarie MD is full-fee — for 2027 entry it is the only GEMSAS graduate-entry medical school whose quota table shows no Commonwealth Supported Places and no Bonded Medical Places at all (indicative 2027 domestic fee AUD $90,200 for a standard full-time year, reviewed annually, FEE-HELP eligible) and is co-located with Macquarie University Hospital; core clinical placements begin in year 3, with earlier years built on foundations and systems-based units.

Small cohort (~60) gives a high-touch teaching model. Selection is purely academic until interview: on the standard pathway, 50% weighted GPA + 50% GAMSAT/MCAT for the shortlist, then 50% weighted GPA + 50% MMI for offers.

There is no portfolio, CV, Casper or work-experience score at any stage — the only non-academic document is a supplementary form acknowledging the programme's requirements, which is not scored. Rural applicants, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants and Macquarie Bachelor of Clinical Science graduates each receive an automatic 3% bonus on the weighted GPA (5% maximum in combination).

The Indigenous Australian Pathway works differently: GAMSAT is optional and both interview and offer decisions are made case by case with Walanga Muru.

UQ: UQ runs Australia's largest 4-year graduate-entry MD (~470 places), anchored at the St Lucia MD Learning Hub and the Greater Brisbane Clinical School's eight clinical units — Children's Health Queensland, General Practice, Greenslopes, Ipswich, Mater, Northside, PA-Southside and Royal Brisbane.

The UQ-Ochsner Clinical School runs Years 1-2 in Brisbane and Years 3-4 in New Orleans, but it is open only to US citizens and permanent residents and selects on the MCAT (minimum 504).

Pre-interview ranking for graduate entry is a flat 50:50 of unweighted average GAMSAT and assessed GPA; after the MMI, applicants are ranked in merit order by pathway and tier, with the MMI score as the tiebreaker.