Notre Dame Sydney vs Wollongong

GAMSAT cut-offs. Notre Dame Sydney — Minimum total of 52 with at least 50 in each subsection; UNDA uses the unweighted average of the three GAMSAT sections, not the overall weighted score. Notre Dame publishes the average GAMSAT of… 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.

Notre Dame Sydney requires Bachelor degree with minimum GPA 5.2/7.0 (weighted from 3 years FTE); GAMSAT 52 overall + 50 in each subsection; Casper (mandatory — applicants without a Casper score are not considered; last accepted sitting 11 June 2026 for the 2026-27 cycle); recorded/asynchronous online MMI.

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. Notre Dame Sydney — Minimum weighted GPA of 5.2/7.0 over three FTE years, with GPA years progressively weighted Final-minus-2 x1, Final-minus-1 x2, Final x3.

Notre Dame publishes the average GPA of applicants OFFERED AN… 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 Notre Dame Sydney 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: Notre Dame Sydney runs mmi (recorded/asynchronous online); live online panel for international applicants; 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: Notre Dame Sydney interviews in September-October (GEMSAS: interview offers released early September 2026); 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 graduate MD. Foundation Years 1-2 are delivered principally through Problem Based Learning in small groups led by a clinician; Clinical Years 3 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: Notre Dame Sydney — 2027 cycle: 40 CSP + 17 BMP + up to 57 full-fee domestic (via GEMSAS) + up to 35 full-fee international (direct…; 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.

Notre Dame Sydney: Not publicly disclosed. 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.

Notre Dame Sydney: Notre Dame retired its selection Portfolio from the 2024 intake and put Casper in its place as the non-academic component; the interview format was not part of that change.

Casper is 30% of the pre-interview composite — the same weighting Notre Dame Fremantle uses — while Wollongong leans on Casper harder still, ranking for interview on 50% Casper plus 50% UOW admissions bonuses. Catholic ethos shapes the curriculum (medical ethics, end-of-life care, social justice) but the program is open to applicants of all faiths and none.

Strong placement network in Sydney Catholic and public hospitals, extending to Werribee Mercy and St John of God Ballarat in Victoria.

Notre Dame also runs entry pathways no other Australian medical school offers: a Priority Entry Pathway reserving MD places for its own Bachelor of Biomedical Science graduates (first Priority Entry in the 2026-27 intake, for students admitted to that degree from 2024 onwards; GPA >=6.0, unweighted GAMSAT >=55, Casper no lower than 1 SD below the mean, Notre Dame preferenced first through GEMSAS), plus facilitated interview pathways reaching the Sydney campus for Notre Dame undergraduate graduates (up to 10 across Fremantle and Sydney), Notre Dame Graduate Diploma or Master of Health and Medical Sciences graduates (up to 25) and ACU Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences graduates (up to 5, Sydney only).

Notre Dame's Pre-Medicine Certificate facilitated pathway is a Fremantle pathway and does not apply at Sydney. 2027 cycle: 40 CSP + 17 BMP + up to 57 full-fee domestic through GEMSAS, plus up to 35 full-fee international places that are NOT offered through GEMSAS in 2027 — international applicants must apply direct to Notre Dame's International Admissions Office.

GEMSAS notes the numbers are subject to change and that the quota includes the assured and priority pathways.

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.