Macquarie vs Wollongong

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… 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.

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.).

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. 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… Wollongong — Accurate as far as it goes, but two published conditions are missing: offers to applicants finishing a degree in 2026 are "conditional on maintenance of the minimum required weighted GPA of 5.5", and…

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 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: Macquarie runs multiple mini interview — macquarie's published 2027 admission guides describe four short stations of up to 8 minutes each, with a different…; 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: 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.; 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.).

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. 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: Macquarie — 2027: ~60 full-fee domestic + ~20 international; 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.

Macquarie: Not published — Macquarie releases no interview-to-offer conversion data, and no admissions centre or accredited body publishes one for this programme. Wollongong: UOW does not publish interview-to-offer conversion, and no Tier-1 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.

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.

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.