*Everything HPAT and Medicine 2012*

tony007

QueenOfLeon wrote: »

But how can you ever prove that these people wouldn't have done just as well had they not done the prep courses? As far as I'm aware, no statistics have ever been released showing HPAT scores vs prep courses. You'll always hear of the people who did well after doing the prep courses, but there are plenty who won't have done as well - there have to be ~1500 people (at least, can't remember the number who sat it this year) under the 50th percentile, the same amount of these could have done prep courses as those that did better.

I nearly doubled my percentile after taking a prep course. Thats not to say that it caused my doubling.

tony007

Ally7 wrote: »

I did a prep course and did terribly, 156. I literally can't understand how I bombed it so badly, I did plenty of prep and my scores were improving! I'm just not sure what to do now.

The lead up to the exam can have an influence on your score too.

tahina

Do u guys think they will abolish da hpat nxt yr??

skinny malinky

I have another question, when people say RCSI is very expensive, what do they mean? How is it more expensive than other courses? If that's the case I'm gonna put it down 5th as money is tight

tahina

skinny malinky wrote: »

I have another question, when people say RCSI is very expensive, what do they mean? How is it more expensive than other courses? If that's the case I'm gonna put it down 5th as money is tight

I think but im not sure i think its afew thousand a year because its private not 100% sure =/ but ur best bet is to call them and ask them to explain it to you =]

hollingr

for students that don't quality for free fees (i.e. a lot of mature students) it's far more expensive.. if its your first go at college then with the free fees initiative you only have to pay the registration fees which are actually getting pretty high nowadays. You are liable for 2860 in RCSI (2475 from 2nd yr onwards), which includes vaccination shots and a laptop.

UCD fees = €2,158.00 and tcd about the same as ucd. not much in it really but tcd doesn't do foundation year so it would work out considerably cheaper for that reason.

If you are from a low income family you may qualify for certain grants, worth looking into.

randylonghorn

tahina wrote: »

Omg da amount of sad faces in skool afta da results wer unbelievable it was like sum1 died

tahina wrote: »

Do u guys think they will abolish da hpat nxt yr??

Again, a reminder that textspeak is not welcome here! English, please!

boyne61

Hi guys did you know that you cannot use Higher Maths additional points for your Hpat calculation unless it is one of your top six scoring subjects in the Leaving Cert.

finality

boyne61 wrote: »

Hi guys did you know that you cannot use Higher Maths additional points for your Hpat calculation unless it is one of your top six scoring subjects in the Leaving Cert.

The extra points for honours maths have nothing to do with the hpat.

jumpguy

boyne61 wrote: »

Hi guys did you know that you cannot use Higher Maths additional points for your Hpat calculation unless it is one of your top six scoring subjects in the Leaving Cert.

That's incorrect. The honours points maths bonus points will be counted if honours maths is in your top 6 after the bonus points are added on.

8000!

hollingr

finality wrote: »

The extra points for honours maths have nothing to do with the hpat.

They have a lot to do with getting into medicine though! Those extra points could be the main protagonist in an increase in points this year.

I guess we can only hope that the effect is not more drastic than 4-5 marks.

Here's a few interesting facts just for reference..

Adjusted scores after bonus:
A1 -> 125
A2 -> 115
b1 -> 110
b2 -> 105
B3 (75 pts) -> A1 (100 pts)
c3 (60 pts) -> B1 (85 pts)
d3 (45 pts) -> c1 (70 pts)

• There are 372 + 'whatever UCC has' places in medicine.
  
• about 6.9 % of honours maths students get an A1 in honours Maths
  
• 8,237 students took honours maths in 2011. I guess we can assume this number will rise significantly with the lure of bonus marks.
  
• 8% of students gained over 500 points in 2010. 62,082 students had level 8 choices.. so lets say about half of those 8% had over 550 (reality is probably much less) = round up to 2500 students.

Some loose guesswork:

Say 10,000 take hons maths this year, up hugely from last year! That means 690 will be getting A1's (approximately/overestimating)

A good proportion of these students will be going for engineering, maths degrees, theoretical physics, actuary, that kind of thing.. It is after all what they will be told by career guidance they are suited to.

I'll go out on a limb and guess half of them are applying to medicine = 345.

Anyone over 80th percentile has a very high chance of getting in, so let's go on a limb again and say about 20% of those that got A1's also got a hpat over 80th percentile = 69 students (I swear I didn't orchestrate that figure to be that particular number..)

So, how many students that have an 80th percentile+ hpat, an A1 in maths AND over 550 in the leaving? A hell of a lot less than 69 sirs and madams.

So you see there is alot of permutations and combination going on and each one you add in 'dulls' the effect maths bonus points may have. This is a gross oversimplification, quite flawed in many aspects, but I thought you all might like some light comfort reading.

Obviously in this scenario i'm not taking into account all the B1-B2 maths students, who can also get over 100, but I don't have the stats for those, and as you move down the grades from a's to b's to c's they don't get as much of a boost to their score. They can only realistically impart a 1 or 2 point increase!

I 'might' try to update these calculations and make them more realistic if I can get some more detailed statistics from the powers that be at the CAO.

Edit: I found better statistics.

http://www.examinations.ie/statistics/statistics_2011/ProvisionalResultsLC2011NationalStatsmorethan10candidates.pdf

For 2011:
a1 5.70
a2 7.50
b1 10.20
b2 11.50
b3 12.40

So, a few more loose calculations..


29.2% of honours maths students will be able to get over 100 points in maths (excluding the a1's!). These are the critical students that can really effect the points this year = 2402 students

Let's assume roughly half of those will be applying for medicine = 1202.5 students. (We'll assume that the half student will die of his calculation induced injuries)

Of these 1202 students, lets again go for the wild assumption that 20% will have competitive HPATs = 240~ students.

Now, a2-b2 in maths + competitive hpat + 550 in leaving cert = (240)(0.5?) = 120 students?

So of those vying for one of 400 odd medicine places, 120 will have an extra 1-3 points. :eek:



coming next.. what damage can the lurking 525+ 80th percentile and up hpatters with A1 in honours maths do??

tweetybird4848

I have 748. Firstly does anyone think that the points will rise so drastically that i wouldn't get a place in med anywhere ( I would be delighted with a place anywhere!) I have literally convinced that the points will rocket up by about 20, it this a likely scenario.

Secondly does anyone have any experience with or know about how you would go about skipping premed in ucd? I have done a year in a biomed course and don't really want to do an extra year! Thanks!

hollingr

i dont think there is any indication that the points can go up that much.. numbers taking the test are relatively stable, hpat scores are stable compared to last year.. the only curve ball can be the bonus points in maths, since leaving cert scores follow a tight bell curve and marking schemes are altered to keep it that way depending on how students do.

There just isn't enough people getting use of the bonus points and even in worst case scenarios they can't really do more damage than a 5-10 mark increase - which means you can sleep soundly knowing you can probably get trinity (739 last year), and most definitely get the lower point med courses of rcsi/galway (732/728 last year)

tweetybird4848

hollingr wrote: »

i dont think there is any indication that the points can go up that much.. numbers taking the test are relatively stable, hpat scores are stable compared to last year.. the only curve ball can be the bonus points in maths, since leaving cert scores follow a tight bell curve and marking schemes are altered to keep it that way depending on how students do.

There just isn't enough people getting use of the bonus points and even in worst case scenarios they can't really do more damage than a 5-10 mark increase - which means you can sleep soundly knowing you can probably get trinity (739 last year), and most definitely get the lower point med courses of rcsi/galway (732/728 last year)

Thank you so much for that comment it was very reassuring! Hopefully it will all work out! I would like trinity but would be delighted anywhere!!!!

Saracarroll

What percentile do you need to be in to be in with a chance of getting Trinity?

spasmaster

Saracarroll wrote: »

What percentile do you need to be in to be in with a chance of getting Trinity?

In past years it has been around 90th percentile with a lc of 550. I realy hope it doesn't go any higher this year.

SpirantSpem

hollingr wrote: »

i dont think there is any indication that the points can go up that much.. numbers taking the test are relatively stable, hpat scores are stable compared to last year.. the only curve ball can be the bonus points in maths, since leaving cert scores follow a tight bell curve and marking schemes are altered to keep it that way depending on how students do.

I can see the bell curve of honours maths changing to increase the numbers of As and Bs. It would make their project maths course look better - more people sitting the paper and more achieving high grades. I wouldn't put my money on a only a slight increase this early.

hollingr

SpirantSpem wrote: »

I can see the bell curve of honours maths changing to increase the numbers of As and Bs. It would make their project maths course look better - more people sitting the paper and more achieving high grades. I wouldn't put my money on a only a slight increase this early.

The point of project maths isn't to increase A's and B's, it's more about reducing failure rates and increasing the uptake of honours maths, which has been spiralling downwards in the past few years. It is also meant to shift the focus to understanding the maths and being able to explain how it works.

I agree that it is way to early to say anything for sure but she has a 20 point buffer, and should at least be quietly confident since the hpat scores and numbers applying have remained fairly constant.

SpirantSpem

hollingr wrote: »

The point of project maths isn't to increase A's and B's, it's more about reducing failure rates and increasing the uptake of honours maths, which has been spiralling downwards in the past few years. It is also meant to shift the focus to understanding the maths and being able to explain how it works.

Exactly - the point of project maths was not to increase As and Bs, but to reduce failure rates which is evidently going to push the number of high grades up also. The Dept. have received much criticism since they introduced the project maths curriculum - from teachers, schools, colleges, students, parents. How great will it look if the numbers passing higher level maths increase? The country will be singing the praises of the project maths curriculum if the number of As and Bs go up. In truth, the marking scheme can be more or less adjusted according to the ideal bell curve.

Here's a quote from projectmaths.com:
"September 6th, 2011 | Author: webmaster
Analysis of the Leaving cert higher results for the last 10 years show that the average mark (mean mark) is 67% with a standard deviation of 16% .The mean has not changed by more than 1% in all that time and the standard deviation has varied by less than 1% .
Analysis of the Leaving Cert H project maths for 2011 .
The average mark (mean mark) is 70.2% with a standard deviation of 12.87 .
Indicating that most people doing project maths did a lot better than those doing the regular exam .
Despite the fact that most students could not make head or tail of paper 1!
Interesting !"

and another

Extract from the SEC report on Project maths

LCH 2011 (project Maths) 90% get an honour (ABC) < 1% fail .

LCH2011 Higher maths regular paper 80% get (ABC) , > 3% fail

LCOrd 2011 (project maths) 76% get an honour (ABC) <7% fail

LCOrd (2011) regular paper 69% get (ABC) ,10% fail.

Paralysis

spasmaster wrote: »

In past years it has been around 90th percentile with a lc of 550. I realy hope it doesn't go any higher this year.

Same - those are literally my scores

Chughbacca_

eia340600 wrote: »

Most colleges have said about 180 at their open days so that's about 85th??

I got 182 for 84th percentile so thats a bit off but yes

Chughbacca_

Does anyone know if i'll be okay with 595 in the leaving last year and 84th percentile this year? Im on 742. Thanks

iluvgreenday246

Chughbacca_ wrote: »

Does anyone know if i'll be okay with 595 in the leaving last year and 84th percentile this year? Im on 742. Thanks

awkward enough, you cant get 595 in the leaving cert....

Slow Show

iluvgreenday246 wrote: »

awkward enough, you cant get 595 in the leaving cert....

You can actually.

iluvgreenday246

Slow Show wrote: »

You can actually.

how exactly? and if youre gonna tell me its from the bonus maths points its not cause their score is from last year :P

kitty9

will the points go up for pharmacy in TCD this year cos of honours maths?

Taco Chips

iluvgreenday246 wrote: »

how exactly? and if youre gonna tell me its from the bonus maths points its not cause their score is from last year :P

People reapplying using last year's Leaving Cert can count honours maths bonus points.

iluvgreenday246

181 80th percentile.... 590 in mocks... am praying so hard right now.....

spasmaster

kitty9 wrote: »

will the points go up for pharmacy in TCD this year cos of honours maths?

Probly by 25.

partyatmygaff

kitty9 wrote: »

will the points go up for pharmacy in TCD this year cos of honours maths?

Unfortunately i'd say that's almost a certainty. Trinity Pharmacy could probably reach 575-580.