Taking GAMSAT in New Zealand
Due to high competition for places at medical school in New Zealand many students are now opting to take the GAMSAT in NZ and then apply for medical school in Australia.
This article will set out what you need to do if sitting GAMSAT in New Zealand and when and where you can take it.
New Zealand currently only has two universities which offer medicine as a degree subject. These are
1. The University of Auckland
which offers a 6 year MBChB program which has approximately 257 places available every year.
Entry to this course is by past academic performance, UCAT score and interview performance in an MMI multiple mini interview assessment.
2. The University of Otago
which also offers a 6 year MBChB program which has approximately 282 places of which 55 are reserved for the NZ Rural Origins sub-category. Admission to this course is by doing the Health Sciences First Year, a graduate entry caregory which requires UCAT and a mature entry category.
This effectively means that there are less than 600 places available to study medicine in the whole of NZ.
As a result competition for places is extremely tough which leads to very many highly qualified and motivated students being unable to secure a place to enter their chosen career.
More and more of these disappointed people are now choosing to go the GAMSAT route.
On completion of another prior degree NZ students are eligible to sit the GAMSAT test and then apply to one of the many Australian universities which use this test for admission to graduate entry medicine programs.
There are currently 12 universities in Australia offering this route so it stands to reason that New Zealand students have a much higher probability of success by hopping across the ditch and chancing their luck in Oz.
These are:
§ The Australian National University
§ Deakin University
§ Flinders University
§ Griffith University
§ Macquarie University
§ University of Melbourne
§ University of Notre Dame – Fremantle
§ University of Notre Dame – Sydney
§ University of Queensland
§ University of Sydney
§ University of Western Australia
§ University of Wollongong
The good news is that to actually sit Gamsat you don't need to even leave NZ.
There is a test centre in Wellington for the March sitting of Gamsat every year.
Just head on over to the web site of the test administrator ACER and you can register online.
The fee is currently $510 AUD.
There is another sitting in September every year but this doesn't tie in as well with the Australian university entrance timetable and there are no test centres in New Zealand for the September sitting. So if for whatever reason you want to take the test in September you'll have to travel to one of the Australian centres.
Further Resources
For more help with GAMSAT check out Griffiths Gamsat Review Home Study System which takes you step by step through all three sections with advanced strategies for each.
