#macrobuniversity

Hey there,

If you are applying for any program that is basically not overseas or doesn’t have special entry requirements (ie. the viewing of your transcript), then it will not affect your atar. This is because for the large majority of courses all that is assessed is your atar. As ½ subjects do not directly affect your atar, this will not affect your entrance to university. This is because your atar is only calculated with your study score from the ¾ subjects you complete. So one N will not affect anything.

Hope this helps!

Love,

Hey!

For quite a few of us this is the first we’ve heard of the UCAT. So for anyone else wondering the UCAT stands for University Clinical Aptitude Test and, as you said, will replace the UMAT from 2019 onwards.

The testing is similar to UMAT and sitting the test online is kind of nice in the sense that it gives students more flexibility into when they want to sit the test. The results from the test are delivered immediately after the completion of the test which can be either more or less daunting depending on how you look at it we suppose. At the end of the day, the UCAT still holds the same purpose as the UMAT.

We wish everyone who is considering this the best of luck as this is the first time it’ll be implemented in Australia.

Love,

Hey there,

We posted a question recently regarding our experiences with UMAT and the link is here:

http://friendsatmacrob.tumblr.com/post/178169549222/so-how-were-your-umat-scores

In terms of preparing for it, here is what some of us did:

FAM Member 1: My friend gave me her MedEntry and I did a couple of the drills and exams to familiarise myself with the sorts of questions. I only really started 2 weeks before UMAT. I’d recommend doing a couple of full exams so you know roughly how long you should spend on each question.

FAM Member 2: Some people begin preparation years beforehand. Some people start a few weeks before. So that you’re comfortable with the type of questions on the UMAT it’s best to have a regular study schedule at least two weeks before the UMAT. As long as you go into the UMAT knowing what your game plan is: what questions to do, how to answer them, what to do when you come across a difficult question, etc, then any amount of prep time should be fine. I recommend practising with the ACER practise tests a few weeks/nights beforehand so you’re familiarised with the layout and types of questions you’ll have to answer (however, keep in mind that some people find the practise tests easier than the actual thing). MedEntry is recommended in that it contains many, many practise questions with answers which are generally much harder than the ACER ones. I did ICanMed which has a different approach in that they categorised questions in order to learn techniques in dealing with each one (they have free workshops you can attend to see what they offer), and that it’s better to know how to answer a question as opposed to mindlessly doing practise questions over and over. See if you can go through someone else’s account (in external prep programs) before you decide to pay for one because they’re pretty expensive imo. Our school library has a bunch of books with practise UMAT questions as well.

Love,

Hey there,

Similar to ATARs, the UMAT is a very personal thing in which students decide whether or not to share their score. Everyone has a different experience with it. Some decide to open their scores with their friends, whilst others wish to open them alone or with with their family members. It is sometimes the case, that whilst one friend opens their score in front of the other, the other friend may not reciprocate that feeling - instead they may want to open their scores alone.  It is important that we respect the privacy of each of the individuals that have undertaken the UMAT, regardless of our curiosity to know their scores, and give them time and space to process their results.

FAM Member 1: Hey! My scores were definitely lower than I wanted but honestly going into it I did no prep so I wasn’t surprised. Honestly it was section three that brought my score down so if you’re going to do the UMAT in the future definitely familiarise yourself with those sorts of questions. It definitely still hurt getting a pretty low score though, as I won’t be applying to some universities that I initially wanted to apply for. However I am still indecisive so I guess I’ll have a better idea of what I want to study next year.

FAM Member 2: Hey there, my UMAT scores were a definite shock to me, given how much effort I put into preparation. And it took me a while to overcome the feelings of disappointment and shock, and I realised that it really isn’t the end of the world. So right now I am re-thinking my uni options and figuring out different pathways to get into med. If there is anything I took away from my experience is to get adequate sleep the night before the UMAT because I definitely think that played a big part in my score, and also to not have a concrete plan, because you never know how things will play out.

FAM Member 3: Heyo, check out this website for other people’s scores: https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/umat-2018-results-discussion.34997/

I wasn’t expecting much but my score was lower than what I needed to get into the medical course I wanted so I guess it’s more confirmation? Surprisingly, I did the best in section 3 which was the worst one I scored in for every practise test I did. How well you do on the UMAT compared to someone else differs only between a few marks. It’s disappointing to know that I was a few marks below a pass but what’s done is done.

Hey there,

UMAT stands for Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test. Many universities will use it as a part of their admission process when selecting students for their medicine, dentistry and health science degree programs. The UMAT test is 3 hours with 10 minutes of reading time. The test contains 134 questions and are designed to measure ability in logical reasoning and problem solving, understanding people and non-verbal reasoning. All UMAT questions are in multiple choice format with 4 or 5 response alternatives.

If you’d like to find out more about the UMAT here’s a link: https://umat.acer.edu.au/about-umat/structure-and-content

Love,

Hey!

I wanted to do a uni extension in year 12 because I thought I would be able to do 3 subjects + uni extension but I was told that it is compulsory to complete 4 VCE subjects at school regardless of whether I do a uni extension or not. So in year 12, you would be completing 4 VCE studies and your uni extension on top of it.

This is because, to be recognised as a full-time student for VCAA you must be studying a minimum of 4 subjects within school. To get around this I know of students who have been allowed to drop one of their 3/4s and instead pick-up a ½ so they are still technically a full time student, but so they are less stressed as they aren’t really doing 7 subjects. But the school doesn’t like people doing this, nor advertise it. You would have to be doing extremely well in your uni subject to this, and in your other subjects generally - and then they may not even let you do this.

We just posted an answer with a bunch of links about uni extension so it would be advisable to refer to that. Here is the link:http://friendsatmacrob.tumblr.com/post/177478849032/hi-fam-so-im-in-year-11-and-i-was-wondering

From what I know, no one in our year level is studying uni extension maths.

If you have more questions you can email me at CIB0001.

Hope this is what you were looking for!

Hi,

We just recently answered some questions about this, and have a post which has links to multiple questions and students with uni extension. Here is the link to the post:http://friendsatmacrob.tumblr.com/post/177478849032/hi-fam-so-im-in-year-11-and-i-was-wondering

In regards to whether or not you would swap into a ¾ subject if your uni extension subject didn’t work out, this would depends on if you did 1 or 2 ¾s  in year 11. If you did 2, then you would be doing your uni extension subject as a 7th subject (though it could contribute to your atar as a 5th or 6th subject if you did better in it that one or your 5/6th subjects). So in this case if your needed to drop it, you could, and wouldn’t affect anything, you would just continue on with your 4 vce subjects. Though, if you were taking it as one of your 5 subjects in year 12 (ie. you only did 1 in year 11), you would be allowed to swap into a ¾ within the first 3 weeks if you hated it (though you might not get your preference because of class allocations), or potentially week 5 if you really hated it (as I know students who have changed at week 5, though this becomes difficult because at this point you would have missed a lot of content).

One other option would be to just drop the uni subject, and not pick-up another VCE subject, so then you would only 4, meaning you would just lose the last 10% from your 6th subject. These are the only things that I could think of that would happen. Though there are probably other possibilities that I am not aware of. It would be best to talk to your coordinators about possible steps. Though if you are worried that you would not be able to cope/it would turn out badly it may not be advisable to take uni extension as one of your subjects. I feel like a lot of people get caught up in the academic grandeur or telling people that they are studying a uni subject. There is no need to take a uni extension subject unless you feel like you are really bored with the academic level of school/want to extend yourself, as you will be able to study it in uni, and you’ll there is a probability that the demands of uni extension will stress you out a lot.

Hope this helps!

Hey there,

I didn’t go to Xialene’s talk but I am a friend of hers and here is what she said:

make lists to keep yourself organised

make sure you have good/supportive friends

the personal statements are the tipping point of your application

not one portion of your application will be the decision maker, which means you have to prepare all parts of the application really well

Hope this helps!

Love,