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Australian Medical school comparison

Notre Dame Fremantle vs UWA

Notre Dame Fremantle and UWA are both Australian medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Both sit in Western Australia, so the state bonus schemes and clinical-placement networks broadly overlap — the differentiation comes from selection, interview and curriculum. Notre Dame Fremantle uses GAMSAT and CASPer; UWA uses UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT.

That mismatch means either preparing two assessments or choosing the school whose test suits you. They also recruit at different stages: Notre Dame Fremantle runs graduate entry, UWA runs both undergraduate and graduate entry.

Side-by-side comparison

Notre Dame Fremantle

Fremantle

Quick comparison

Location
Fremantle, Australia
Entry pathway
Graduate
Admission tests
GAMSAT + CASPer
GAMSAT
Minimum 52 overall + 50 in each subsection (UNDA averages the three sections rather than using the overall weighted GAMSAT). Notre Dame publishes the average GAMSAT of applicants OFFERED AN INTERVIEW (not of successful entrants), for Fremantle and Broome combined: 64.65 (2024 intake), 66.10 (2025 intake), 65.50 (2026 intake); Broome is included only from the 2026 intake. These exclude applicants considered on additional criteria including rurality and facilitated-interview eligibility. They are descriptive averages, not cut-offs: Notre Dame states that interview selection also weighs Casper and bonus points, and that place offers additionally take the interview score into account. The published hard minimum remains an unweighted GAMSAT average of 52 with at least 50 in every subsection.
UCAT-ANZ
-
ATAR
-
Interview format
MMI delivered on a recorded (asynchronous) online platform for domestic applicants; a live online panel interview for international applicants. Notre Dame named 'Modern Hire' as the recording tool in its 2025 international admissions brochure, but neither Notre Dame nor GEMSAS names a platform for the 2027 cycle — do not rely on it.
Post-interview chance
Not publicly disclosed. Notre Dame publishes no interview-to-offer ratio for the 2027 cycle, and GEMSAS states that individual scores and rankings are never released to applicants.
Decision date
Late October-early November 2026 for the main round of place offers, with additional vacancy-filling offers in November 2026, December 2026 and January 2027. The programme commences 18 January 2027 with compulsory in-person Orientation, and conditional offers require degree completion to be confirmed by 23 December 2026.

UWA

Crawley

Quick comparison

Location
Crawley, Australia
Entry pathway
Dual (UG + Grad)
Admission tests
UCAT-ANZ + GAMSAT + ISAT + MCAT
GAMSAT
Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50. Scores are valid for four years as at the application closing date — for 2028 commencement the earliest accepted sitting is September 2023 and the latest March 2027. Applicants holding more than one valid score may use their best, not necessarily the most recent. 2027 interview shortlist: 60% GPA + 40% GAMSAT (both GAMSAT and GPA are standardised before shortlisting, and all scores are standardised prior to final ranking). Domestic applicants who were successful in obtaining an interview for 2026 entry averaged GAMSAT 68.53 (GEMSAS) — an interview-invite average, not an offer-holder average; UWA and GEMSAS publish no offer-holder figures.
UCAT-ANZ
Required only for the domestic Assured Pathway (High Academic Achiever, Rural and Broadway quotas), and it must be sat in the year of application — a score cannot be carried over. UWA publishes no threshold: 'There is no set minimum score requirement; the UCAT ANZ threshold is set by ranking within each quota each year. Minimum results from previous years are not published.' Ranking uses the cognitive total only — the sum of Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning, scored 900-2700 — while Situational Judgement is reported separately (300-900) and UWA 'reserves the right' to use it in future. Figures on the retired /3600 four-subtest scale are not comparable and cannot be ratio-converted to /2700. International school leavers sit ISAT, not UCAT-ANZ.
ATAR
Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum; Indigenous school-leaver pathway minimum ATAR 90, with the School of Indigenous Studies (or askUWA) as first contact. The Boola Boola Djinda / CAMDH route is the GRADUATE Indigenous pathway and uses no ATAR at all. TISC publishes no rank data for UG056 (Doctor of Medicine via Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) Assured Pathway) — both the minimum rank for consideration and the lowest selection rank offered are listed as n/a, because selection is not rank-only. The separate standalone Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) (UP056) ran 92.00 minimum / 96.65 lowest selection rank (2024 admission), 92.00 / 97.50 (2025) and 95.00 / 97.70 (2026).
Interview format
Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants
Post-interview chance
Not publicly disclosed.
Decision date
November-January (domestic: graduate offer rounds from November via GEMSAS, school-leaver offers on TISC timelines in December/January); international offers from late May and early August

Notre Dame Fremantle vs UWA - in detail

Admission tests compared

UCAT-ANZ cut-offs. Notre Dame Fremantle — no published cut-off. UWA — Required only for the domestic Assured Pathway (High Academic Achiever, Rural and Broadway quotas), and it must be sat in the year of application — a score cannot be carried over. UWA publishes no…

GAMSAT cut-offs. Notre Dame Fremantle — Minimum 52 overall + 50 in each subsection (UNDA averages the three sections rather than using the overall weighted GAMSAT). Notre Dame publishes the average GAMSAT of applicants OFFERED AN INTERVIEW… UWA — Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50.

Scores are valid for four years as at the application closing date — for 2028 commencement the earliest accepted sitting is…

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

Notre Dame Fremantle requires General domestic applicants apply through GEMSAS (applications 1-29 May 2026, closing 5pm AEST 29 May 2026).

Bachelor degree at AQF Level 7 completed within the last 10 years of the closing date — or be in the final year of one; the 10-year rule may be waived where an additional AQF Level 7 or higher qualification has been completed by 31 July 2026.

Weighted GPA of at least 5.2 as calculated by GEMSAS over three FTE years, progressively weighted final-minus-2 x1, final-minus-1 x2, final x3, with no more than one year of credit below AQF Level 7. Unweighted GAMSAT average of the three sections of at least 52, with a minimum of 50 in each subsection.

A Casper score is mandatory — 'Applicants without a Casper score will not be considered.' Shortlisted applicants then sit an online Multiple Mini Interview. GEMSAS states: 'no considerations outside the published entry requirements will be taken into account. Strictly no additional factors, including but not limited to work experience, field experience, or other extracurricular achievements will be considered.

UWA requires Assured Pathway (domestic school leaver): minimum ATAR 98 for the HAA, Broadway and Rural quotas (90 for the Indigenous school-leaver pathway) plus UCAT-ANZ plus MMI; for the Broadway and Rural quotas the minimum is assessed after applicable Broadway adjustments. Meeting the minimum does not guarantee entry — final ranking is interview 50% + ATAR 30% + UCAT-ANZ 20%.

Graduate MD: Bachelor degree with GPA 5.5/7.0 plus GAMSAT plus MMI. Assured Pathway subject requirements are Chemistry ATAR and Mathematics Applications ATAR (or higher-level mathematics), for the Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) / Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major that Assured Pathway students must complete; either can instead be met with a first-year bridging unit (CHEM1003 / MATH1720).

UWA labels them 'Prerequisites' on the Assured Pathways page and 'WACE prerequisite' on the major page but 'recommended' on the MD course page. English is a separate English-language-competency requirement, not a subject prerequisite.

ATAR. Notre Dame Fremantle — no published cut-off. UWA — Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum; Indigenous school-leaver pathway minimum ATAR 90, with the School of Indigenous Studies (or askUWA) as first contact. The Boola…

Graduate-entry GPA. Notre Dame Fremantle — Minimum weighted GPA 5.2/7.0 as calculated by GEMSAS over the three most recent FTE years, progressively weighted final-minus-2 x1, final-minus-1 x2, final x3.

Notre Dame's published average GPA of… UWA — Graduate Pathway minimum GPA 5.5 at the time of interview selection, unweighted, calculated over the most recent three full-time-equivalent years (3 FTE = 144 credit points at UWA), excluding…

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 Notre Dame Fremantle and UWA 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: Notre Dame Fremantle runs mmi delivered on a recorded (asynchronous) online platform for domestic applicants; a live online panel interview for international applicants; UWA runs multi-mini interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants.

Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

Interview windows: Notre Dame Fremantle interviews in September-October (domestic GEMSAS route: interview offers early September 2026, interviews held September/October 2026).

Separate timetables apply to the direct pathways: Indigenous-pathway interviews commence from June 2026, and international online panel interviews run 18 May - 30 November 2026.; UWA in Late September-early October (graduate MD, expected online); 30 November-11 December 2026 (domestic school leaver). International: main round May, second round late July/early August..

Curriculum and teaching style

Notre Dame Fremantle runs a PBL curriculum; UWA runs a Integrated curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Notre Dame Fremantle leans on small-group case-based learning from year 1, while UWA uses a more traditional lecture-led structure.

Specifics: 4-year graduate MD. Years 1-2 foundations and clinical skills at Fremantle with early clinical immersion. Years 3-4 are clinical rotations in public a Assured Pathway: 3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) with the Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major (TISC code UG056, UWA c

Intake size: Notre Dame Fremantle — 2027 cycle ~127 total: 80 CSP (60 Fremantle + 20 KCRMT Broome) + 32 BMP + up to 15 international + uncapped…; UWA — 2027 cycle: 206 domestic places plus about 40 international. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Post-interview offer rate

Notre Dame Fremantle: Not publicly disclosed. Notre Dame publishes no interview-to-offer ratio for the 2027 cycle, and GEMSAS states that individual scores and rankings are never released to applicants. UWA: Not publicly disclosed.

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 dropped its written Notre Dame Portfolio and replaced it with Casper from the 2024 intake — but the interview itself did not change: it was a Multiple Mini Interview before and after, delivered on a recorded online platform since 2020. There was never a panel format for domestic applicants.

— one of the heaviest CASPer weightings in Australian medicine (30% of pre-interview composite). The Kimberley Centre for Remote Medical Training (KCRMT), Broome, is a Commonwealth-funded end-to-end rural stream that took its first cohort in Semester 1 2025 — it is not a 2027 innovation.

It carries up to 20 CSP places a year; students spend Years 1-2 on Notre Dame's Broome campus and Years 3-4 in regional training hubs across WA in partnership with the Rural Clinical School of WA. Rural and metropolitan applicants preference it inside the same GEMSAS application as Fremantle; long-term Kimberley/Pilbara residents apply direct to Notre Dame.

Note the centre's name — it is not the 'Kimberley Centre for Rural and Remote Medicine and Training'. From 1 January 2026 Indigenous CSP allocation is uncapped (Commonwealth policy change). Two reserved-entry routes exist, and Notre Dame publishes a number for neither.

(1) Assured Pathway — a school-leaver route: applicants apply to the Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Doctor of Medicine (Assured Pathway) at Fremantle or Sydney at the same time and secure an MD place on completing the bachelor degree, provided a minimum GPA of 2.5 is maintained each semester; it is closed to anyone who has already commenced tertiary study.

(2) Priority Entry Pathway — a graduate route reserving places for Notre Dame's own Bachelor of Biomedical Science graduates (including double degrees) first admitted from 2024 onwards, first entering in the 2026-2027 intake; these applicants still apply through GEMSAS and must achieve a GEMSAS-calculated GPA of 6.0 or higher, an unweighted GAMSAT of 55 or higher, and a Casper score no lower than 1 SD below the mean.

Notre Dame states only that reserved places are 'distributed nationally between campuses and fee types in a similar pattern to the distribution of general places'; GEMSAS notes the published place numbers already include both — 'Quota includes assured and priority pathways.' No 40 / 20+20 split is published anywhere official.

UWA: UWA is one of only a handful of Australian medical schools with a true dual-pathway entry: a 6-year Assured Pathway from school (3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) then the MD with one year of credit; UCAT-ANZ + minimum ATAR 98, or 90 via the Indigenous school-leaver pathway, + interview — the ATAR minimum is for consideration only and does not guarantee entry) and a 4-year Graduate MD (GAMSAT).

Both streams converge into the same MD clinical years. In year 3, 25% of the UWA MD cohort undertake their studies in a Western Australian rural setting, in hospitals and general practices from Esperance to Kununurra, completing the same curriculum in a longitudinal integrated clinical setting.

Dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entry routes: a school-leaver pathway at minimum ATAR 90 (first contact the School of Indigenous Studies) and a graduate pathway through Boola Boola Djinda / CAMDH assessed on GPA 5.0 or above and a one-day panel interview at the centre, with GAMSAT and ATAR not required. There is no Indigenous-specific MMI.

Which is right for you?

Start with the admission test: Notre Dame Fremantle needs GAMSAT and CASPer, UWA needs UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT. Preparing for one well beats splitting your time across two. Both sit in Western Australia, so a local applicant gets the same state bonus at each.

They suit different stages too: Notre Dame Fremantle is graduate entry, UWA is both undergraduate and graduate entry. 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

Notre Dame Fremantle uses GAMSAT and CASPer. UWA uses UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT. 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 .