2028 Entry Requirements & Interview Format
University of Waikato in Hamilton runs a graduate-entry medicine program for 2028 entry in New Zealand. Admission tests listed: GAMSAT. University of Waikato holds a panel interview.
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Step-by-step: entry requirements, admission-test prep, personal statement, interview format and the key deadlines.
Open the guide →Case-based learning, 4 years (graduate entry), placements in Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki/Whanganui, Hawke's Bay and Nelson/Marlborough.
See the course →The New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Waikato is a four-year graduate-entry Doctor of Medicine (MD) programme, taking its first intake of 120 students in 2028 with applications opening mid-2027.
Year 1 is spent at the Hamilton campus studying biomedical sciences and the social determinants of health through case-based learning, digital anatomy tools and multidisciplinary clinical simulation. Years 2-4 are spent based in one of five regions — Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki/Whanganui, Hawke's Bay, and Nelson/Marlborough — across regional hospitals, general practices, acute care providers and community health services.
The programme is designed to produce graduates who choose primary care specialties such as general practice, emergency medicine and psychiatry.
New Zealand's third medical school, alongside Auckland and Otago; the university's 2025 Annual Report calls it the first medical school to open its doors in New Zealand in 60 years. Three things make it structurally different from Auckland and Otago.
It is graduate-entry only — there is no first-year gateway to compete through, so no HSFY and no Auckland First Year GPA race. It uses GAMSAT rather than UCAT ANZ, which aligns it with the Australian graduate-entry system rather than the NZ undergraduate one, and makes it the only NZ medical school a GAMSAT candidate can apply to.
And it is explicitly built to produce primary-care doctors for rural and regional New Zealand: after a single year in Hamilton, students spend three full years based in regional communities rather than rotating out of a metropolitan teaching hospital.
The programme received Government approval in 2025 with $82.85 million in Crown funding alongside more than $150 million from the University and philanthropic partners, and its 120 places a year sit on top of the extra places being added at Auckland and Otago.
Case-based curriculum. 4-year graduate-entry MD. Year 1 at the University of Waikato Hamilton campus: biomedical sciences and the social determinants of health taught through a case-based learning framework with a digital-first pedagogy, including digital anatomy tools, reinforced by multidisciplinary clinical simulation in a purpose-built facility.
Years 2-4: a distributed clinical placement programme based in one of five regions, with students embedded in communities across hospital, primary care and other community health settings.
Regions and their Health NZ hospital sites are Waikato (Waikato Hospital), Bay of Plenty (Tauranga Hospital), Taranaki/Whanganui (Taranaki Base and Whanganui Hospitals), Hawke's Bay (Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Hospital) and Nelson/Marlborough (Nelson and Wairau Hospitals); Waikato and Tauranga Hospitals will be shared with the University of Auckland.
Each region also has Community Clinical Learning Centres (12 in total; final locations still subject to due diligence as of June 2026), and students complete a year-long placement in general practice. First clinical placements from 2029.
The programme was not yet accredited as at October 2026 (the course page says entry requirements will be published once it has gained accreditation), and the Ministry of Health's July 2025 Detailed Business Case sets out a proposed year-by-year structure.
University of Waikato — New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine (MD) is strong in these research areas:
Format: Admissions interview (format not yet published)
Waikato has confirmed that applicants who meet the degree and GAMSAT thresholds will be invited to admissions interviews, but has not yet published the interview format, station count, length or assessed domains.
The University states that the exact entry requirements and selection process will be published once the programme has gained accreditation, and that current information is indicative and subject to change. Treat every detail on this page as provisional until Waikato publishes its final admissions documentation, expected ahead of applications opening in mid-2027.
An initial intake of 120 students a year from 2028. These are additional places, on top of the extra funded places being phased in at Auckland and Otago between 2024 and 2026.
University of Waikato was founded in 2025 and is based in Hamilton.
Programmes offered:
These are real recordings of the interviewers you would meet, from a panel of 18 photoreal faces. Speak your answers out loud, get pressed with follow-ups, and receive rubric-scored feedback about two minutes after you finish, with a replay of your answers.
Try the AI interviewer| Entry pathway | Graduate entry |
|---|---|
| Interview format | Panel interview |
| Intake | An initial intake of 120 students a year from 2028 |
| Admission overview | Indicative and subject to change until accreditation is complete. Applicants must hold a bachelor's qualification, or be in their final year of study, with a B grade average. Graduates from all fields of study are eligible — there is no prescribed science degree and no prerequisite first-year course set. Applicants must also achieve a passing mark in GAMSAT (the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test, covering humanities and social sciences reasoning, written communication, and biological and physical sciences). Applicants who meet these thresholds are then invited to admissions interviews. Applicants indicate a preferred clinical placement region at the time of application. Applications open mid-2027 for a 2028 start. |
|---|---|
| GAMSAT | GAMSAT required — a passing mark, with the threshold not yet published. Waikato is the only NZ medical school using GAMSAT rather than UCAT ANZ. |
| GPA | A bachelor's qualification (or final year of study) with a B grade average. Graduates from all fields of study are eligible. |
| Prerequisites | No prescribed undergraduate subjects and no gateway first-year course set — any bachelor's degree at a B average is eligible. This is the key structural difference from Auckland and Otago, both of which require a specific first year of health sciences study before you can compete for a place. |
| Place types | 120 places a year from 2028. The domestic/international split has not been published. |
| Bonded / rural | No bonded service obligation has been published. The programme is designed around rural and regional practice through its structure — three of the four years are based in regional communities — rather than through a contractual return-of-service requirement. |
| Specialities offered | General Practice, Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry |
| Format | Admissions interview (format not yet published) |
|---|---|
| Interview window (2028 entry) | Not yet published — first intake is 2028, with applications opening mid-2027 |
| Decision date (2028 entry) | Not yet published |
| Post-interview chances | Not published — no admissions cycle has run yet. |
If you are a graduate, Waikato changes the shape of the NZ application map from 2028: it is the only New Zealand medical school that will take you without a gateway first year, and the only one that selects on GAMSAT. The practical planning point is that GAMSAT is the same test used by most Australian graduate-entry MD programmes, so one sitting can support a combined NZ-plus-Australia graduate strategy in a way UCAT ANZ never could. Do not, however, build a plan on the published detail yet: Waikato states plainly that its entry requirements and selection process are indicative until accreditation is complete, and no GAMSAT cut-off, GPA range or interview format has been released. Applications open mid-2027, so the concrete things to do now are finish your degree at a comfortable B average or better, decide whether GAMSAT fits your academic background, and watch for the final admissions documentation. If you are a school leaver, this does not change your 2027 or 2028 plans — you still need Otago HSFY or the Auckland gateway year.
Two questions from our New Zealand bank that match University of Waikato — New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine (MD)’s panel format. Try answering them out loud, then open Prometheus for the model answers and follow-up tips.
You are halfway through Health Sciences First Year at Otago. Your mid-year GPA is 6.8 — below the cut-off you need to progress to second-year medicine. You still have the second semester. How do you approach the next five months, and what does this experience reveal about your readiness for medicine?
Likely follow-up · What specific study strategies would you change, and how do you know those changes will work?
New Zealand health and medical education distinguishes between 'cultural competence' and 'cultural safety'. What is the difference, and why does New Zealand use cultural safety rather than cultural competence as the preferred framework in medicine?
Likely follow-up · Who developed the concept of cultural safety, and in what context?
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Learn moreUniversity of Waikato's official course page was opened and reconciled with this record on 11 September 2026. Figures the school does not publish on that page remain unconfirmed.
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