How to get into UWA Medicine
Your 2027 Entry step-by-step guide
University of Western Australia Medical School (UWA) in Crawley, WA runs a school-leaver and graduate-entry medicine program for 2027 entry. Admission tests listed: UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT. Published hurdles: ATAR — Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum; GAMSAT — Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50. UWA holds multiple mini interviews (MMI).
- Interviews (2027 entry)
- 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.
- Decisions (2027 entry)
- November 2026-January 2027 (domestic: graduate offer rounds from November 2026 via GEMSAS, school-leaver offers on TISC timelines in December 2026/January 2027); international offers from late May 2027 and early August 2026
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UWA expects either Year 12 ATAR or a bachelor GPA — 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. for Medicine (MBBS/MD) and uses Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants for interviews in the 2027 Entry cycle.
Entry is dual-pathway (undergraduate and graduate) and selection uses UCAT-ANZ, GAMSAT, ISAT and MCAT; applications close through GEMSAS or your state TAC (UAC, VTAC, QTAC, SATAC, TISC), and CSP, BMP and full-fee places are all capped, so treat the standard above as a threshold to clear rather than a target to aim at.
This guide is written for 2027 Entry applicants and updated annually before each GEMSAS / UAC cycle. Sources include University of Western Australia Medical School's official course page, GEMSAS, the UCAT-ANZ Consortium, ACER (GAMSAT), and direct conversations with current students. Read time: ~12 minutes.
Checked field-by-field against University of Western Australia Medical School's official course page on 11 September 2026.
UWA at a glance
| ATAR | Direct Pathway: HAA / Broadway / Rural streams require ATAR 98 minimum |
|---|---|
| GPA | A completed PhD, or a completed UWA Doctor of Dental Medicine, is deemed a GPA of 7.0 |
| GAMSAT | Graduate Pathway: minimum GAMSAT 55 overall with no section below 50 |
| UCAT-ANZ | the sum of Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning, scored 900-2700 |
| Interview format | Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants |
| Interviews (2027 entry) | 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. |
| Decisions (2027 entry) | November 2026-January 2027 (domestic: graduate offer rounds from November 2026 via GEMSAS, school-leaver offers on TISC timelines in December 2026/January 2027); international offers from late May 2027 and early August 2026 |
UWA entry requirements
| Pathway | Undergraduate and graduate entry |
|---|---|
| ATAR floor | 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). |
| Contextual ATAR | Indigenous school-leaver Assured Pathway minimum ATAR 90 (vs 98 standard), via the School of Indigenous Studies. For the Broadway and Rural quotas the ATAR 98 minimum is assessed AFTER applicable Broadway adjustments, and EAS or Uway adjustments are taken into account for all quotas. Rural school leavers carry a 25% rurality rating in the final ranking (ATAR 22.5% + interview 37.5% + UCAT-ANZ 15% + rurality 25%). |
| GPA | 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 credit/advanced standing. A completed PhD, or a completed UWA Doctor of Dental Medicine, is deemed a GPA of 7.0; a completed Masters by research adds a 0.2 bonus. There is no 10-year rule. Domestic applicants who were successful in obtaining an interview for 2026 entry averaged GPA 6.82 (GEMSAS) — an interview-invite average, not an offer-holder average and not a threshold; the published minimum is GPA 5.5 at the time of interview selection. Assured Pathway: students complete the 3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) with the Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major (TISC application code UG056; UWA course code BP056), holding the conditional MD place by achieving a selection GPA of at least 5.5 within the first two years; the major carries one year of credit into the MD, so both degrees finish in six years. |
| 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. |
| Interview | Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants |
| Place types | 2027 cycle: 206 domestic places plus approximately 40 international across both pathways, with up to 50% of places filled by school-leaver (Assured Pathway) entry and the remainder by graduate entry — GEMSAS lists up to 103 domestic graduate places. UWA designates 28.5% of Commonwealth supported places as Bonded Medical Places (the page also words this as 28.5% of all domestic places); within the domestic quota up to 10% is Indigenous and 30% rural, and 20 school-leaver places are reserved for Broadway schools. (Fraser's). Indigenous allocation up to 10% of domestic places. |
| Indigenous pathway | Boola Boola Djinda ('Many, Many Stars'), established in 2025 as the successor to the Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health (CAMDH, established 1996) and still referred to as CAMDH on UWA's MD page and by GEMSAS, runs the graduate Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander pathway for both the UWA MD and DMD: GPA 5.0 or above, no GAMSAT and no ATAR required, and a one-day panel interview at the centre. Two intakes (July and September) with applications due mid-June and mid-August and interviews at the end of July and end of September. Final ranking for Indigenous graduate applicants is on GPA and interview only. The school-leaver Indigenous route is separate — minimum ATAR 90 (vs 98 standard), with the School of Indigenous Studies as first contact. 2027 Indigenous allocation up to 10% of domestic places. |
| Bonded / rural | ~30% of domestic places allocated rural; eligibility requires a principal home address in a Modified Monash Model (MMM 2023) MM-2 to MM-7 area for five consecutive years or at least ten cumulative years, with school leavers lodging UWA's Rural Eligibility form via TISC by the TISC closing date and graduates submitting supporting documentation via GEMSAS (due 15 June 2026 for 2027 entry). 2027 final ranking (rural graduate): GPA 22.5% + GAMSAT 15% + Interview 37.5% + Rurality rating 25%. Rural school leavers: ATAR 22.5% + Interview 37.5% + UCAT-ANZ 15% + Rurality rating 25%. Standard non-rural final ranking: GPA 30% + GAMSAT 20% + Interview 50%. |
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.
Year 12 ATAR (school leavers) or bachelor degree GPA (graduates) is the academic gateway, plus the admission test and interview.
GAMSAT
GAMSAT is a 5.5-hour written test of Humanities & Social Sciences (Section I), Written Communication (Section II) and Biological & Physical Sciences (Section III). Run by ACER twice a year (March and September). Scores remain valid for ~4 years. Most competitive offer-holders score 60+ overall with each section above 50.
Written submissions
Australia has no equivalent of the UK's single UCAS personal statement. GEMSAS graduate-entry applications use GAMSAT + GPA without a written component; most state-TAC undergraduate applications use ATAR + UCAT-ANZ without a written component. The schools that DO require written content (JCU portfolio, Notre Dame Sydney/Fremantle questionnaire, Wollongong short answers, Bond essays) each ask different, school-specific questions. Treat each school's prompt set as a discrete short-answer test - do not recycle a single document across multiple schools.
Limits are school-specific. JCU portfolio responses: typically 250-500 words per question. Notre Dame questionnaire: 250-400 words per response. Wollongong short answers: ~300 words each. Bond essays: 500 words. Read the current cycle's prompt brief for each school carefully - limits and prompts shift cycle-to-cycle.
Five things that win
Four things that lose
Worked-example opener (do not copy — for shape only)
"At 14, watching the geriatrician on my rural placement explain a Goals of Care decision to a frightened daughter, I realised that medicine is as much about clarity in language as it is about clinical knowledge. The conversation lasted nine minutes; the silence afterwards lasted longer. Since then I have spent…"
Notice: a specific scene rather than a cliché, a precise detail (the nine-minute conversation), and a closing sentence that bridges to the next paragraph. We have a step-by-step written-submissions service if you want a tutor to help shape yours.
The Panel interview at UWA
UWA uses Multi-Mini Interview (8 stations x 7 minutes) for domestic applicants; panel of two interviewers (~50 minutes) for international applicants. For 2027 entry, interviews typically take place 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.. Final decisions are released November 2026-January 2027 (domestic: graduate offer rounds from November 2026 via GEMSAS, school-leaver offers on TISC timelines in December 2026/January 2027); international offers from late May 2027 and early August 2026.
At UWA, expect the following from the panel interview. Panel-style interview - typically 20-40 minutes with 2-4 interviewers (a mix of academic staff and clinicians, sometimes a current student or admissions specialist). Questions probe in depth; expect follow-ups that test how you reason rather than what you've memorised.
How the UWA Panel actually runs
UWA MMI uses 8 numbered stations of 7 minutes each — 2 minutes to consider the written question, then 5 minutes with the interviewer — with the whole process taking approximately 70-75 minutes including registration. Questions are provided in writing and interviewers may or may not ask follow-ups.
Domestic school-leaver and domestic graduate applicants sit the same 8-station MMI after pre-interview ranking; international school-leaver and international graduate applicants instead sit a panel interview with two interviewers, approximately 50 minutes including registration, typically five MMI-style questions that are not individually timed within an overall time limit. Stations span ethical reasoning, communication and role-play, motivation, teamwork, and current-issue debates.
For 2027 entry GEMSAS says graduate MD interviews are 'expected' to be held online within 22 September - 3 October 2026, and UWA gives the same window as 'around late September/early October'; graduate applicants are notified by email usually one to two weeks before the date.
UWA does not publish the venue or the online/in-person format for domestic school-leaver interviews in advance, stating only that 'interview periods and venues differ' and that specific dates go to shortlisted candidates. UWA does not publish who its interviewers are.
What they assess
What UWA assessors are scoring: Panel interviewers want to understand how you think - not just what you say. They're looking for intellectual humility, structured reasoning, evidence of reflection on real experience (not theoretical), and a realistic awareness of the demands of medicine.
Common station / question themes
- Portfolio / written submission deep dive (multiple follow-ups on every claim)
- Motivation for Medicine (with realistic awareness of the career)
- Work-experience reflection (what you learned, what surprised you)
- Ethical scenarios with multiple follow-ups
- Academic curiosity (often a tutor will ask about a recent journal article or biomedical concept)
- Knowledge of the school and curriculum
- Hot topics in Australian healthcare (Medicare, rural workforce, Indigenous health, mental health)
- Hypotheticals that test reasoning under pressure
Sample questions you might face at UWA
Tell us about a moment in your work experience that changed how you think about medicine.
You've written about [X] in your portfolio - tell us more about that.
If you read about a new study claiming [biomedical fact], how would you decide whether to trust it?
What do you understand about the workforce challenges facing rural and remote Australia?
A 16-year-old asks for the contraceptive pill but doesn't want her parents to know. How do you approach this?
Why this school over the other twenty-odd medical schools you could have applied to?
Describe a setback you've had and what you learned.
How would you cope with a patient dying on your shift?
Model-answer guidance: “Why medicine?”
Our panel-interview prep covers ethics frameworks (SPIES, the four pillars), structured behavioural answers (STAR), and live mock interviews with admissions specialists.
Practise the UWA interview
Rehearse the real format before the day — on demand with our AI interviewers, or live with a tutor.
Sit a mock with photoreal AI interviewers — any time
A timed MMI or panel interview on video — Australian & international voices — with interviewers who listen, react and press with follow-ups. Rubric-scored feedback and a replay the moment you finish.
Live mocks with a tutor who’s been in the room
A full UWA-style mock with a medic or dentist tutor — honest scoring against real marking criteria, a station-by-station debrief and a written action plan.
Book a mock interviewMonth-by-month timeline for 2027 Entry
The cycle runs roughly January 2025 (start of prep) through GEMSAS preference lock and state-TAC deadlines in September 2026, MMIs in October-December 2026, to first-round offers in December 2026 and course start in late January / early February 2027. Here are the milestones you cannot miss.
Decide and start work / clinical experience
Confirm medicine or dentistry as your career direction. Start banking clinical exposure (hospital volunteering, GP shadowing, aged-care or disability-support roles) and non-clinical experience (research assistant, peer tutoring, leadership). Australian schools weight reflection over hours - track what each placement taught you.
Begin UCAT-ANZ / GAMSAT prep
Open your prep window 6-9 months before the test sitting. UCAT-ANZ candidates focus on the 4 sub-tests (Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Situational Judgement). GAMSAT candidates focus on Section I (Humanities), Section II (Written Communication) and Section III (Sciences) - the Section III sciences gap is the most common reason graduates under-perform.
GAMSAT March sitting
ACER GAMSAT March test date. Scores released early May. Most graduate-entry applicants sit GAMSAT in March of their apply year so results are available before GEMSAS preferences open.
UCAT-ANZ registration + GEMSAS portal info
UCAT-ANZ registration opens (test sat in July). GEMSAS portal information released for graduate-entry medicine. ATAR-tracking begins for current Year 12 applicants.
GEMSAS portal opens + UCAT-ANZ booking
GAMSAT March results released (late May). GEMSAS applications open 1 May and close 29 May across the ten consortium schools (ANU, Deakin, Griffith, Macquarie, Melbourne, Notre Dame Fremantle, Notre Dame Sydney, UQ, UWA, Wollongong). Sydney, Flinders and Monash are NOT in GEMSAS and need separate direct applications. UCAT-ANZ booking deadline is 15 May.
GEMSAS preference entry opens
Rank up to 6 preferences across the 8 GEMSAS schools. ACER GAMSAT September registration window opens (a second sitting option for applicants who under-performed in March).
UCAT-ANZ test window
Take UCAT-ANZ between early July and early August. There is one sitting per cycle - no retake until the following year. Results are released to state TACs (UAC, VTAC, QTAC, SATAC, TISC) in October. State TACs (UAC, VTAC, QTAC, SATAC, TISC) accept undergraduate medicine preferences from July onwards.
GEMSAS preferences lock + direct apps close
GEMSAS interview offers issued in early September; consortium interviews run September-October. ACER GAMSAT September sitting - too late for this cycle, results land mid-November. JCU QTAC + JCU-portal applications close 30 September. State-TAC medicine preferences close 25-30 September. (Bond's QTAC round does not open until January.)
MMI invitations issued
Most graduate-entry consortium schools issue MMI invitations through October. Bond runs its structured interview cycle. UCAT-ANZ results released to state TACs for undergraduate ranking. State TAC preference changes typically close late October.
MMIs run + ATAR results
MMIs run across consortium schools, Bond, JCU and Macquarie through October-December. ATAR results released to state TACs for school-leaver undergraduate applicants. GAMSAT September results released for applicants who sat the second window.
First-round offers
First-round offers released by GEMSAS, state TACs and direct-application schools. Acceptance deadlines are typically within 10 days of offer - reply on time or forfeit the place. Some schools release a second offer round in early January.
Late offers + course start
Late-round offers released through January. Deferral requests due. Orientation week is scheduled by most schools for late January or early February, with first-year teaching commencing late January / early February.
What makes UWA different
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.
Notable research areas
Curriculum (Integrated)
Assured Pathway: 3-year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Specialised) with the Integrated Medical Sciences and Clinical Practice major (TISC code UG056, UWA code BP056), needing a selection GPA of 5.5 within the first two years to hold the conditional MD place; that major carries one year of credit into the MD, so the combined pathway is six years. Graduate Pathway: 4-year MD. Both converge into shared MD clinical years. Foundations at Crawley; clinical placements distributed across Royal Perth, Sir Charles Gairdner, Fiona Stanley, Joondalup, and the Rural Clinical School (Albany, Bunbury, Broome, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Narrogin, Port Hedland). For 2027 entry GEMSAS lists the graduate MD interviews as expected to be online (22 September - 3 October 2026). UWA does not publish whether domestic school-leaver interviews are online or in person, telling shortlisted candidates directly; international school-leaver interviews are held in Perth, at specified overseas locations, and online. No Tier-1 source describes this as a change from a previous format. UWA publishes no headline MD fee. Commonwealth supported student contributions are charged per unit and international (and any full-fee) annual course fees per credit point, quoted through the UWA Fee Calculator and subject to annual indexation. Commonwealth supported student contribution amounts are set and indexed annually by the Australian Government, not by UWA.
Location: Crawley, Australia
Founded in 1957. Whether the city suits you matters - five or six years is a long commitment. Visit on an open day if you can; current students will be the most honest assessors of culture and clinical placement quality.
Read the full UWA course guide — integrated + case-based learning, 4 years (graduate entry), with placements in Perth and rural Western Australia, from Esperance to Kununurra.
Application statistics for UWA
UWA intake
2027 cycle: 206 domestic places plus about 40 international. Up to 50% go to school-leaver (Assured Pathway) entrants and the remainder to graduate entry, for which GEMSAS lists up to 103 domestic places. Note: gradready reports ~103 domestic and Fraser's reports 143 — discrepancy likely reflects different counting bases (graduate-only vs combined Direct + Graduate). Direct Pathway via UP056 Bachelor of Biomedicine TISC ranks 96.65 (2024) → 97.50 (2025).
How UWA selects, at a glance
Source: University of Western Australia Medical School admissions data; GEMSAS / state-TAC published statistics; ACER (GAMSAT) and UCAT-ANZ Consortium decile data; recent FOI responses.
Six mistakes that derail medicine applications
UWA — frequently asked questions
Sources for this UWA guide
Apply to UWA with confidence
We have helped hundreds of applicants turn their GAMSAT / UCAT-ANZ, portfolio and MMI prep into offers from UWA and other Australian medicine schools.