Waiting for News!

Hello there GAMSAT^®ers! Congratulations to all of you who have sat the GAMSAT Exam and gotten to the other side! You should all be very proud of yourselves - it’s a big deal.

It’s very normal to have mixed feelings after such an undertaking. It’s normal to feel as though there is a small void in your life given so much effort went into preparing for this Herculean task. Many hours were likely spent learning concepts, practicing GAMSAT questions and essay writing. All of a sudden, that’s not a concern anymore. It’s also normal to feel horrible and full of worry about potentially not having done as well as you would have liked, or spiralling about not having finished your second essay, or getting stuck on a few Chemistry or Physics questions. All of these feelings are okay, and rest assured you’re not the only prospective medical student experiencing them. Please also remember – the GAMSAT^® is just a hurdle, and it’s not a reflection of how good of a medical student you will be.

Having said that, it certainly doesn’t make the wait for results any easier to handle. Why can’t ACER just release the result in one week or two? Why do we have to wait until May? I’ve been in your shoes, and I understand that it’s certainly very frustrating to feel like you have to hold your breath and maybe put your life on hold until your GAMSAT^® exam results are released. Hopefully the rest of this article will give you some reassurance and ideas for what you can do while you wait (and maybe some ideas on what you shouldn’t do). 

After having taken the exam, it becomes a bit of a waiting game for the results. A few months feels like an eternity. The harder you think about it, the longer that eternity becomes. In the interim between sitting the exam in March, and receiving the results in May, it can feel like quite an uncomfortable period. Your duty now is to look after yourself, recharge, and rest. Rest assured, you’ve done what you could for that sitting, and the results will speak for themselves. As future medical professionals, it is essential that you take care of yourselves. During your GAMSAT preparation, you may have put some things on the backburner (e.g. physical activity, social encounters, etc.). Now is the time to re-invest in these things and occupy your time with things that aren’t specifically GAMSAT^®-related. It may serve as a distraction from the wait, and it will also help to reestablish the balance that you previously had. For example, some of my colleagues went on a holiday, others worked more hours, some even picked up new hobbies. I myself spent the entire time fixating on the potential outcome that I had done poorly. In retrospect, that was NOT a good strategy to make the time pass. I would not recommend it.

It’s important to give yourself a break from the pressure of medical school applications / GAMSAT^® Exam. There’s little utility in speculating about GAMSAT^® scores. There’s too much uncertainty surrounding the GAMSAT^® Exam. GAMSAT^® results can be weird and wonderful, and to some extent, impossible to predict. The complicated nature of the marking and the style of questions means that you can never be truly certain of exactly how you went, regardless of how extensive your preparation was. The most likely thing that will happen by speculating is you’ll just stress yourself unnecessarily. Here is where I reiterate - as future medical professionals, you need to look after yourselves. You’ll have a huge amount to think about once those results come out, so rest up for now! For more tips about what you can do in this interim, check out our article What to do after the GAMSAT. 

Only after the results have come out can we really think about the next step in the medical school admission process. Let’s say you end up scoring highly - congratulations! Let’s say you score lower than you would have liked - it can be a disheartening and unpleasant experience, but it’s okay. It’s an exam that many people sit a few times before gaining admission to medical school. It sucks, but it is a common experience. Fortunately, there is no limit to the times the exam can be taken, and there is no race to get into an Australian medical school. Everyone’s journey into medicine is different and unique.

To maximise the number of scores they can apply with, some candidates choose to sit the September exam and continue studying even after the March sitting. In such a case, I would encourage candidates to take some time to rest, recharge, and then continue. As mentioned, I don’t recommend thinking about what mistakes you might have made or how you could have done better next time, but once results are out, that would be a good time to start thinking about all that, if you find yourself needing to resit the GAMSAT^®. Practice is paramount, but don’t forget to pace yourself as well during the GAMSAT^® preparation process. As you would know, preparation for the GAMSAT^® Exam is a marathon, and pacing yourself strategically is essential. That’s why we have established our GAMSAT Courses to provide additional resources to facilitate your entry into medicine. If you find that you have received a good enough GAMSAT^® score to proceed to the next step, then it’s time to start thinking about the upcoming medical school interviews!

In summary, now that the GAMSAT^® Exam is done, please take some time for yourself to recharge your batteries, however that may be. Getting into a medicine program is a long process, and so is the subsequent career in medicine. Hence, self-care is paramount. Once GAMSAT^® results are out, be sure to check out our Definitive Guide to GAMSAT Results to find out what your GAMSAT^® score means. If you didn’t score as well as you would have liked, check out our Free GAMSAT Materials.