Monash vs Sydney

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs. Monash — Domestic Direct Entry only (international applicants sit ISAT). Monash publishes its December-round interview cut-offs. On the current three-subtest /2700 scale, 2026 entry cleared at 2380 (94th… Sydney — no published cut-off.

GAMSAT cut-offs. Monash — Not required and not accepted on any Monash pathway - both Graduate Entry pages state applicants are not required to sit the GAMSAT, and Direct Entry has never used it.

Monash publishes no date for… Sydney — Hard minimum 50 in each of the three sections (USyd MD Admissions Guide); Minimum 50 in each of the three GAMSAT sections (Reasoning in Humanities and Social Sciences; Written Communication…

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.

Monash requires Direct Entry (domestic): school-leavers only - Year 12 completed no more than two years earlier and NO commenced tertiary study (Certificate IV and above disqualifies). Minimum ATAR 90 (2026-entry lowest offers: 96.10 standard, 95.05 ERC, 91.25 BMP); VCE English (study score 35 EAL or 30 non-EAL) and Chemistry (30) prerequisites, Biology not required; UCAT-ANZ; MMI.

Monash states the three components - ATAR aggregate (including adjustment factors), UCAT-ANZ total and MMI - are equally weighted. Direct Entry (international): ISAT (170 overall, 165 per section) instead of UCAT-ANZ, with published equivalents of VCE 97.50 / IB 39.

Graduate Entry (domestic): a nominated Monash degree (Bachelor of Biomedical Science, Pharmacy (Hons), Physiotherapy (Hons), or Bachelor of Science with five specified units) or Federation University's Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Gippsland Partnership Program), WAM ≥ 70, ranked on WAM 40% + MMI 60%; at least 70% of places are reserved for Monash Bachelor of Biomedical Science graduates.

Graduate Entry (international): any internationally recognised bachelor degree with significant, broad biomedical science content at GPA ≥ 6.0/7.0. No GAMSAT and no SJT on any pathway; Graduate Entry applicants can be considered only twice, and the MMI may be attended only once per course.

Sydney requires Bachelor degree (any discipline) with minimum GPA 5.0/7.0 (4.5 rural); GAMSAT minimum 50 in each section (hard hurdle), ranked on individual section scores; International applicants may substitute MCAT (minimum 500, test date January 2024 - June 2026) - ISAT is not accepted.

No interview on the standard Metropolitan graduate pathway, but Dubbo-stream applicants must submit a personal statement and may be interviewed, some international applicants are interviewed, Indigenous Facilitated Entry Scheme applicants may be interviewed, and Sydney reserves an interview or Situational Judgement Test as a tie-break between equally ranked applicants.

ATAR. Monash — Direct Entry minimum eligibility ATAR 90. Monash publishes lowest-offer ATARs rather than a competitive cut-off: for 2026 entry the lowest ATAR to receive an offer was 96.10 (standard School Leaver… Sydney — no published cut-off.

Graduate-entry GPA. Monash — Graduate Entry (domestic): minimum WAM 70 to be eligible, but Monash publishes the non-DRL WAM cut-off to be INVITED TO INTERVIEW - 82.313 for 2026 entry (81.179 for 2025, 80.313 for 2024, 82.386 for… Sydney — Minimum 5.0/7.0 weighted GPA (4.5 for rural applicants).

GPA functions as a hurdle only — a 5.1 and 7.0 rank equally once above the floor.

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.

Monash uses MMI (Multiple Mini Interview, online via Zoom (6 stations × 8 min interview + 2 min reading; 4 stations for international applicants)); Sydney uses Assessment day (No interview on the standard Metropolitan (Sydney) graduate pathway - ranking is on individual GAMSAT section scores only).

These two formats reward different skills — MMI emphasises breadth, station-recovery and structured answers under time pressure, while Assessment day rewards malleability and intellectual honesty.

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

Interview windows: Monash interviews in Direct Entry December-January; Graduate Entry September (2027-entry cycle); Sydney in No interview on the standard Metropolitan graduate pathway. Dubbo-stream and Indigenous-scheme interview dates are not published by Sydney (they necessarily fall between the 4 June 2026 application close and the 3 September 2026 first-round offers, but no date is published).

DDMP online Assessment Days 18 December 2026 and 18 January 2027 for domestic applicants; international DDMP online assessments 23 September 2026, 2 December 2026 and 28 January 2027..

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

Specifics: Both pathways award the same degree, Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine, and share the same four clinical schools. Direct Entry (5 yea 4-year graduate MD. Eight vertical themes run across all four years: basic and clinical sciences; clinical skills; diagnostics and therapy; research,

Intake size: Monash — Direct Entry (Clayton): approximately 234 domestic places, inclusive of 30 Extended Rural Cohort and approximately 67 Bonded Medical Program places; Sydney — ~300 students per year in total (not 300 domestic plus internationals). A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Monash: Monash does not publish an interview-to-offer conversion rate. It does publish round volumes: for 2026 entry it made 192 December interview offers to Victorian-based non-DRL applicants and 193 to Dean's Rural List applicants, before two further interview rounds in January, against approximately 234 domestic places - so more applicants are interviewed than there are places.

January-round interview volumes are not published, so no conversion percentage can be stated. Sydney: N/A for the standard Metropolitan graduate pathway - GAMSAT section ranking determines offers. Sydney publishes no post-interview conversion data for the Dubbo stream, the international interview, the Indigenous Facilitated Entry Scheme interview, or the DDMP Assessment Day.

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.

Monash: Monash says it is the only Victorian university offering both a direct-entry school-leaver pathway and a graduate-entry pathway to the SAME degree - Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine.

Direct Entry (M6011) is 5 years from Clayton on equally weighted ATAR + UCAT-ANZ + MMI; Graduate Entry (M6018) is 4 years with Year A at Monash Rural Health Churchill, selected on WAM 40% + MMI 60% with no admission test.

DOMESTIC graduate entry is closed to outside graduates - only nominated Monash degrees plus Federation University's Gippsland Partnership Bachelor of Biomedical Science qualify - but INTERNATIONAL graduate entry is open to any recognised bachelor degree with substantial biomedical content.

Direct Entry interviews run in three rounds: a first round in December ranked on UCAT-ANZ alone (Dean's Rural List applicants, then Victorian-based non-DRL applicants), a second round in January for Victorian and DRL applicants ranked on equally weighted UCAT-ANZ and ATAR aggregate, and a third January round for applicants who completed Year 12 interstate or overseas.

Sydney: Sydney runs a 4-year graduate-entry MD (a masters-level degree, CRICOS 079216J) with a substantial 14-week research project in year 3 and a full pre-internship year 4.

The standard Metropolitan pathway is GAMSAT section ranking with no interview, but the Dubbo stream (24 CSP-only places, the whole four-year MD taught at the School of Rural Health in Dubbo) adds a rural-motivation personal statement and an interview that counts toward ranking.

School leavers can enter through the Double Degree Medicine Program (BA/MD or BSc/MD, 7 years, ATAR 99.95, no admission test, online Assessment Day of group interview plus written assessment), progressing to the MD without GAMSAT or a further interview if they finish the bachelor's in minimum time with a credit average.

The Indigenous Facilitated Entry Scheme, overseen by the Indigenous Admissions Advisory Group, relaxes the GPA floor to support improvement trajectories and waives GAMSAT entirely from 2027 entry.