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- Sep 8, 2005
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First off, I must emphasise that Otago has an excellent medical programme with outstanding medical graduates practising in different countries. However, if you're intending to study health science first year (HSFY, or pre-med year, so to speak) there as an international student, think twice! Having studied HSFY in 2004, and having had numerous correspondence with the staff involved in med school admission, I have first hand knowledge in how selection for medicine works for international students, and I feel obligated to tell it to as many people as possible before their hard earned money goes to the sewage.
I chose Otago initially because it's cheaper to study there than to study in the UK or Australia. Before I went to Otago, I requested the University to send me information specific to the HSFY programme. Among all the information booklets was one letter stating the following:
"The competitive places available in the second year of Medicine for 2005 for international applicants from all countries are fixed as below:
Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery: 12 places"
Knowing that the quota for international students was fixed at 12, I proceeded to apply and accept the offer to study HSFY. Before I proceed any further, let me briefly explain the two classes of international students here. One class consists of those students who study HSFY under government contract (mostly from Malaysia and Brunei); in other words, they are sent to Otago by their government and are fully funded by their government. The other class consists of privately-funded student.
In the first month of studying HSFY, I heard from some classmates that those int'l students who are under government sponsorship are given a higher priority in medicine admission, regardless of their academic achievements, than those who are privately funded. Disturbed by this news (as I was privately funded), I proceeded to clarify this with the Health Science Office, who's responsible for medicine admission. The person to whom I talked is Melany Wilde, the Manager of undergraduate admissions. In the meeting, she told me in person that those international students who came to study HSFY under government sponsorship are given a higher priority than those who are privately funded! I questioned her about the quota of 12 places for int'l students. She told me the 12 places included both government-sponsored students and privately funded students! This is ridiculous as those government-sponsored students are guaranteed admission to medicine as long as they get over 70% in HSFY; they are not even required to write the UMAT. Meanwhile, privately funded students need to write the UMAT to be considered for 2nd year medicine. This contradicted with the statement quoted above: The COMPETITIVE places available in the second year of Medicine..............12 places. For those government sponsored students, admission to medicine is not competitive, it's almost guaranteed! Melany Wilde then went on to tell me that it's possible that there will be no places left for us privately funded students as most of the 12 spots will go to those sponsored students! At that moment, I realised that the whole admission issue is a fraud. I wouldn't have studied here had I known earlier that the 12 "competitive" places thingy is a lie and there could be no places for us no matter how well we do in the HSFY programme.
Angry at her response, I brought this matter one level up and emailed Dr Brunton, who is the Associate Dean of International Admissions, Health Sciences Division. Initially, he was unwilling to disclose the number of places put aside for int'l fee paying students. Again, I mentioned about the aforementioned letter in my email to him. He asked me to send him the letter. I scanned it and sent it to him. After that, I never heard back from him.
Here comes my results from HSFY. I got an average of about 90% across all 7 papers in HSFY, with UMAT percentiles in the following order: 80+, 70+, 99, and was rejected by medicine. Meanwhile, all the sponsored students (mostly from Brunei) got in to medicine, with some of them starting HSFY in the last 2 months when we were about 3 months into the 2nd semester (they arrived at Otago in October!!! bloody hell....). Understandably, those who have to repeat medicine year after year are the sponsored students. One guy from Brunei has studied 4th year medicine 3 times before going on to 5th year.
A handful, and only a handful of privately funded students got into medicine. (Nowhere near 12) Many of them got 99% in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biostatistics.
The local students who're currently in 2nd year medicine class mostly got an average of high 70s / low 80s in HSFY.
If this continues, the school's international reputation will suffer.
I chose Otago initially because it's cheaper to study there than to study in the UK or Australia. Before I went to Otago, I requested the University to send me information specific to the HSFY programme. Among all the information booklets was one letter stating the following:
"The competitive places available in the second year of Medicine for 2005 for international applicants from all countries are fixed as below:
Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery: 12 places"
Knowing that the quota for international students was fixed at 12, I proceeded to apply and accept the offer to study HSFY. Before I proceed any further, let me briefly explain the two classes of international students here. One class consists of those students who study HSFY under government contract (mostly from Malaysia and Brunei); in other words, they are sent to Otago by their government and are fully funded by their government. The other class consists of privately-funded student.
In the first month of studying HSFY, I heard from some classmates that those int'l students who are under government sponsorship are given a higher priority in medicine admission, regardless of their academic achievements, than those who are privately funded. Disturbed by this news (as I was privately funded), I proceeded to clarify this with the Health Science Office, who's responsible for medicine admission. The person to whom I talked is Melany Wilde, the Manager of undergraduate admissions. In the meeting, she told me in person that those international students who came to study HSFY under government sponsorship are given a higher priority than those who are privately funded! I questioned her about the quota of 12 places for int'l students. She told me the 12 places included both government-sponsored students and privately funded students! This is ridiculous as those government-sponsored students are guaranteed admission to medicine as long as they get over 70% in HSFY; they are not even required to write the UMAT. Meanwhile, privately funded students need to write the UMAT to be considered for 2nd year medicine. This contradicted with the statement quoted above: The COMPETITIVE places available in the second year of Medicine..............12 places. For those government sponsored students, admission to medicine is not competitive, it's almost guaranteed! Melany Wilde then went on to tell me that it's possible that there will be no places left for us privately funded students as most of the 12 spots will go to those sponsored students! At that moment, I realised that the whole admission issue is a fraud. I wouldn't have studied here had I known earlier that the 12 "competitive" places thingy is a lie and there could be no places for us no matter how well we do in the HSFY programme.
Angry at her response, I brought this matter one level up and emailed Dr Brunton, who is the Associate Dean of International Admissions, Health Sciences Division. Initially, he was unwilling to disclose the number of places put aside for int'l fee paying students. Again, I mentioned about the aforementioned letter in my email to him. He asked me to send him the letter. I scanned it and sent it to him. After that, I never heard back from him.
Here comes my results from HSFY. I got an average of about 90% across all 7 papers in HSFY, with UMAT percentiles in the following order: 80+, 70+, 99, and was rejected by medicine. Meanwhile, all the sponsored students (mostly from Brunei) got in to medicine, with some of them starting HSFY in the last 2 months when we were about 3 months into the 2nd semester (they arrived at Otago in October!!! bloody hell....). Understandably, those who have to repeat medicine year after year are the sponsored students. One guy from Brunei has studied 4th year medicine 3 times before going on to 5th year.
A handful, and only a handful of privately funded students got into medicine. (Nowhere near 12) Many of them got 99% in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biostatistics.
The local students who're currently in 2nd year medicine class mostly got an average of high 70s / low 80s in HSFY.
If this continues, the school's international reputation will suffer.