Medical School in New Zealand: Auckland vs. Otago

Despite the title of my blog being the Life of a Medical Student at the University of Auckland, many of you who are interested in doing Medicine in New Zealand should know that there are only 2 universities that offer the MBChB degree: the University of Auckland and the University of Otago.

Now, just offhand, I don't know much about the MBChB programme offered at Otago so if you are seriously considering Otago Uni then DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH! This means reading their prospectus, going to career events and contacting them directly. 

What I do know is that, like at Auckland, you cannot get into Medicine straight away. There's an overlapping year that I'll just refer to as Premed year. 

1. OTAGO:

Premed year at Otago requires doing Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) 

With this, you can apply for Dentistry as well as Medicine. Therefore, if you are considering Dentistry AND Medicine, then you should go to Otago since Auckland doesn't offer Dentistry. This is described in a lot more detail on their website, here. 

Admission to Medicine is based on: 

-grades 

-UMAT

No interview is required, so if you want to avoid this step, then Otago would suit you. However, be aware that due to not having an interview, UMAT is given greater weighting and personally, I feel that it's easier to prepare for an interview than for UMAT. 

2. AUCKLAND

Premed at Auckland requires doing Overlapping Year 1 (OLY1) 

With this, you choose to do either Health Science or Biomed. As to which one to choose, and how to go about preparing for them, I'll discuss this in a later post. 

Admission to Medicine is based on: 

-grades

-UMAT 

-interview

Regardless of which one you do, you'll do 8 papers and both share the same 4 papers. 

These 4 common papers are:

~POPLHLTH111

~CHEM110

~BIOSCI107

~MEDSCI142

These are the ONLY papers taken into consideration for Medicine admission, HOWEVER, this doesn't mean you can completely neglect your other 4 papers since your average GPA of all 8 papers will determine if you get an interview. 

Since admission is based on 3 factors, the weightings given to each respectively are 60%, 15% and 25%. Since the interview is weighted MORE than UMAT, if you think you can better prepare for an interview then you should definitely consider Auckland. Have a read of their entry requirements.

This is my very brief and short breakdown of the entry requirements for both universities, and as a disclaimer, I definitely recommend you doing your own research about them before making a decision. There are also other factors to consider such as moving out of home, connections, climate and finance. Remember that it's absolutely fine to lose sleep over this decision - it's a big one and you should talk to others about it. 

If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment or send me an email! I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities. Please also share this post and my blog if you think it'll be helpful to others. Happy reading, and please stay tuned for more posts! 

-Diana