A-Level and academic profile
Notre Dame Fremantle requires Bachelor degree with minimum GPA 5.2/7.0; GAMSAT 52 overall + 50 in each subsection (unweighted average of 3 sections); CASPer; MMI (Modern Hire asynchronous).. UNSW requires ATAR 96.00+ (lowest selection rank 2025) plus UCAT-ANZ; English and Mathematics or Science prerequisites; MMI.. UNSW is the stricter A-Level offer; Notre Dame Fremantle is slightly more forgiving. If your predicted grades are borderline, Notre Dame Fremantle carries the lower academic-rejection risk pre-interview.
Interview formats
Both Notre Dame Fremantle and UNSW use MMI interviews, so the underlying prep approach is the same — practise ethics frameworks, NHS hot-topic answers and (for MMI) structured station responses against a timer. That said, the specifics differ slightly: Notre Dame Fremantle runs mmi (asynchronous online via modern hire); UNSW runs multi-mini interview (~10 stations). Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep. Interview windows: Notre Dame Fremantle interviews in September-November; UNSW in November-December.
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. Years 1-2 foundations and clinical skills at Fremantle with early clinical immersion. Years 3-4 hospital and rural placements acro 6-year integrated MD. Phase 1 (years 1-2): foundations and scientific basis. Phase 2 (years 3-4): clinical practice with rotations. Phase 3 (years 5-6 Intake size: Notre Dame Fremantle — 2027 cycle ~127 total: 80 CSP (60 Fremantle + 20 KCRMT Broome) + 32 BMP + up to 15 international + uncapped Indigenous. Significant +17 expansion vs 2026 (110) driven by KCRMT Broome pathway and Commonwealth Indigenous policy change.; UNSW — ~189 domestic offers (~135 CSP + ~54 BMP) plus ~40-60 international = ~230-250 total annual cohort (Fraser's UNSW Undergraduate Medicine Guide).. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.
Post-interview offer rate
Notre Dame Fremantle: Not publicly disclosed; aggregator estimate ~200-250 interviewed for ~100 places.. UNSW: ~40% of interviewees receive an offer.. 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
Notre Dame Fremantle: Notre Dame Fremantle replaced its portfolio + panel system with CASPer from the 2024 intake — one of the heaviest CASPer weightings in Australian medicine (30% of pre-interview composite). 2027 cycle introduces 20 new CSP places at the Kimberley Centre for Rural and Remote Medicine and Training (KCRMT) Broome — Kimberley-region remote-workforce expansion. From 1 January 2026 Indigenous CSP allocation is uncapped (Commonwealth policy change). Assured Pathway: from 2024, 40 places nationally (20 Fremantle + 20 Sydney) reserved for Assured Pathway undergraduate pre-MD applicants. UNSW: UNSW runs a 6-year direct-from-school MD with two pre-clinical years followed by integrated clinical and research years. The Indigenous Entry Program offers an alternative pathway; rural-origin applicants gain Rural Admission Scheme bonus weighting. Pre-interview ranking weights ATAR (or equivalent) and UCAT-ANZ; the MMI then carries roughly a third of the final composite.