The Importance of Maintaining Your GPA

Given that GAMSAT® Exam, applications and interviews make up most of the medical school entry requirements, there's a surprising number of students who don't really know how important their GPA is in helping to secure a place.

The fact is, if you’re applying to a school that uses your GPA and GAMSAT® Exam to rank you for an interview, your GPA is actually the thing that can help you, or hurt you, the most. The reason being, your GPA is calculated on a scale of 7, so every little increase or decrease in your grade can have a pretty significant effect on your overall GPA (and therefore your combination score for medical school admissions).

In addition, even for hurdle schools (schools that only use GPA as a hurdle and rank candidates for interview solely on their GAMSAT® Exam), you still usually need a credit average to apply, so the age-old adage of ‘Ps get degrees’ won’t quite cut it.

I don’t mean to freak everyone out, but if you’re in the position where you’re still at uni and know you want to do medicine, then you’re actually pretty lucky, because you still have control over your GPA. So with that in mind, pull your finger out! Especially if you’ve experienced the first year under-performer phenomenon, where you’re so liberated post HSC® Exam and succumbing to those ‘uni night’ parties (they don’t really need to specify a particular night, it’s pretty much every day of the week…). You don’t have to give that all up, but just reel it in a bit because you’ll be kicking yourself if your 4.99 GPA means that you actually can’t apply to any Australian medical school. So be consistent, make study plans, develop good exam technique and bump that GPA up. Even if you have a low GPA, there are still options for you to study medicine. Check out our article What are My Options for Studying Medicine If I Have a Low GPA?

The other issue is of course studying for the GAMSAT Exam itself, and the impact that can have on your uni studies. Some people look at Section 3 and think their uni curriculum will cover it. But the fact of the matter is – simply doing first year organic chem won’t actually prepare you for success in the GAMSAT® Exam if you haven’t practised GAMSAT® Exam style questions and pushed yourself to complete them under true exam conditions*. So the question of when to take the test is one worth considering. If you want to start practising today, check out our Free GAMSAT Practice Questions and Materials. 

But back to GPAs – there’s no denying how important they are so make sure you put enough effort in to keep it above the minimum and even more if you want to walk away with a competitive combination score. I’m aware that there are freaks who don’t study at all for the GAMSAT® Exam and kill it. These people are anomalies and should be treated with suspicion, especially if they try to convince you to wing it.  You’d be better off putting your $470 towards Powerball. For most people, if there's still time to try and boost your GPA, then that's definitely something you should be focusing on. I'll now provide a bit of advice about how to boost your GPA, I’ll be covering that in another post for fear of rambling on too long, so keep an eye out on the blog.

As mentioned before, if you are still in the process of completing your degree, then you're pretty lucky. The short answer for how to improve your GPA is to put a lot of work into your subjects. Now that we've gotten the obvious answer out of the way, another tip is to try and take easier subjects next semester, just to increase the likelihood of getting more of those sweet, sweet A's, without having to pull all-nighters as often as you would have to with the more difficult subjects. There may even be additional advantages to taking easier courses since you will have more time to concentrate on your harder classes or have more time to prepare for the GAMSAT.

Now, all of the above is well and good, unless you've already completed your degree, and there's no way to change your GPA anymore. In this case, the most high yield thing you can do is to put your all into preparing for the GAMSAT. Even with a low GPA, the pathway to medicine is not forever closed to you. With a good enough GAMSAT score, there's a chance it will offset your low GPA and win you that much-coveted medical school interview.

If all else fails, and even after getting a good GAMSAT score, you're still not getting invited to attend a medical school interview, then your final option may be to do further tertiary study. Doing an Honours year is a huge time commitment, not to mention the cost, but it is a strategy that has worked for many students before you - especially because with some universities, your later grades will be weighted more heavily than your earlier grades. It can open up doors that were previously closed.

All in all, a lot of things come into play when it comes to applying to a medical school in Australia. My most important recommendation is to focus on improving things that you can control, and don't stress out too much over things that you cannot control. One of the biggest things that you most definitely have control over is your GAMSAT preparation, so don't hesitate to throw your everything at this mammoth of a exam. As a final tip, start your GAMSAT exam preparation by downloading our free GAMSAT Study Syllabus, which will help you plan your studies more efficiently.