GAMSAT 2014?

Ziggy87

Anybody think there's any chance of the UL cut off dropping below 53? Just wishful thinking on my behalf ðŸ˜

DroghedaTutor

hi junoon,

march was my first attempt. i only decided to sit gamsat on 31st january. twenty years ago i studied vet med for three years, so was hoping section 3 would be okay for me, seeing as i had done many uni level science exams.

i took time off work and studied fulltime for four weeks. i did five hours of science starting with the basics, used MCAT examcrackers verbal reasoning book for section 1 (i did three tests a week) and spent an hour a day on essays (see below).

i found section 3 impossible. literally impossible. in the end i stopped trying to work out answers and put in random choices for about 70% of the paper. i'm not making this up. i got 48 in section 3.

i've always read and have great writing skills, so wasn't too fearful of sections 1 & 2. i knew section 2 was where i could score higher to pull me up overall. everyday for six weeks, i put a subject word e.g. commercialism, friendship, war into the guardian online comment is free section, read through 4 to 6 articles on the topic and wrote a summary of the journalists main points. i had no opinions of my own, so realised i needed to borrow some. then after a few weeks of this, i started practicing two essays in an hour using the topics i'd researched. i got 57 in section and 81 in section 2. the essays saved me from the car crash of paper 3.

overall i got 56 and UL is my first choice.

if i was going to be sitting gamsat again, i still wouldn't know how to improve my section 3 marks. the paper was completely different to the samples and really difficult. i'm not a stupid person but was completely blown away by it. no way i could answer many of the questions in ten minutes let alone 90 seconds.

if you are going to sit gamsat again, focus on the essays. it is the quickest and easiest way to improve your mark and once you've improved your writing and thought process, it won't matter what topic they throw at you - you will be able to cope very well. much safer situation than relying on a good mark in the sciences.

best of luck

DroghedaTutor

correction! i got 42 (not 48) in section 3.

section 1 57
section 2 81
section 42

overall 56

the essays are where the gold is people. practice, practice, practice.

Rc11

Hey guys, congrats on all the great results!! I have 53 and UL is my first choice, what are the chances of ul staying at 53 and me getting a place do people think? I'm worried it will move up a point.

HopefulGEM

Rc11 wrote: »

Hey guys, congrats on all the great results!! I have 53 and UL is my first choice, what are the chances of ul staying at 53 and me getting a place do people think? I'm worried it will move up a point.

It's very hard to tell, if you ring the cao and ask to speck to the guy who's in charge of grad med, he can give you a good idea of your chances. Really nice fella, spoke to him before. Just can't remember his name:/

Ziggy87

HopefulGEM wrote: »

It's very hard to tell, if you ring the cao and ask to speck to the guy who's in charge of grad med, he can give you a good idea of your chances. Really nice fella, spoke to him before. Just can't remember his name:/

Apparently he did a talk somewhere in Limerick earlier on in the year and indicated that its going to come down, even as low as 50

Junoon

DroghedaTutor wrote: »

hi junoon,

march was my first attempt. i only decided to sit gamsat on 31st january. twenty years ago i studied vet med for three years, so was hoping section 3 would be okay for me, seeing as i had done many uni level science exams.

i took time off work and studied fulltime for four weeks. i did five hours of science starting with the basics, used MCAT examcrackers verbal reasoning book for section 1 (i did three tests a week) and spent an hour a day on essays (see below).

i found section 3 impossible. literally impossible. in the end i stopped trying to work out answers and put in random choices for about 70% of the paper. i'm not making this up. i got 48 in section 3.

i've always read and have great writing skills, so wasn't too fearful of sections 1 & 2. i knew section 2 was where i could score higher to pull me up overall. everyday for six weeks, i put a subject word e.g. commercialism, friendship, war into the guardian online comment is free section, read through 4 to 6 articles on the topic and wrote a summary of the journalists main points. i had no opinions of my own, so realised i needed to borrow some. then after a few weeks of this, i started practicing two essays in an hour using the topics i'd researched. i got 57 in section and 81 in section 2. the essays saved me from the car crash of paper 3.

overall i got 56 and UL is my first choice.

if i was going to be sitting gamsat again, i still wouldn't know how to improve my section 3 marks. the paper was completely different to the samples and really difficult. i'm not a stupid person but was completely blown away by it. no way i could answer many of the questions in ten minutes let alone 90 seconds.

if you are going to sit gamsat again, focus on the essays. it is the quickest and easiest way to improve your mark and once you've improved your writing and thought process, it won't matter what topic they throw at you - you will be able to cope very well. much safer situation than relying on a good mark in the sciences.

best of luck

thank you DroghedaTutor, mecci, hypnos

After seeing the results , especially after dropping from 54 to 38 in section 2 i felt like I was not good enough to pull through this or to become a doctor ...

I don't know ...why i felt so...

may be because i was hoping more on section 1 and section 3 scores to make the finish.And felt like i had to just hold the ground in essays just like the previous time where i scored 54.This result is hurting more so because English is my second language and i had a deep rooted feeling that i should focus more on other sections than section 2 .

On hindsight i feel like the choice of explanations and examples i used in my essays were of bit controversial and arguable. I think that would have seen as more extreme or inadequate to draw a generalization.
for example ...writing about Bill Clinton as a leader to follow and he admitted about monica lewinsky issue etc

I know its past by now but still would like to know how you wrote your essays...

did you prepare paragraphs useful for any essay question in advance or did u quote words from famous people or used proverbs etc in essays?

DroghedaTutor

i didn't bother with any quotes or proverbs, reasoning in advance that i'd be under so much pressure a simpler aim would be to get minimum 3 pages per essay down in the hour.

what i did you was:

- put a catchy title on my essays
- open with a strong sentence. guardian articles provides loads of examples of this. after a while, you start thinking in this way, so it's not hard to fire out a good opener.
- i borrowed arguments from the articles i read and refreshed my brain of these every two weeks up until the exam. the day before the exam i only read and re-read the essays i'd written. no science. no verbal reasoning.

Junoon

DroghedaTutor wrote: »

i didn't bother with any quotes or proverbs, reasoning in advance that i'd be under so much pressure a simpler aim would be to get minimum 3 pages per essay down in the hour.

what i did you was:

- put a catchy title on my essays
- open with a strong sentence. guardian articles provides loads of examples of this. after a while, you start thinking in this way, so it's not hard to fire out a good opener.
- i borrowed arguments from the articles i read and refreshed my brain of these every two weeks up until the exam. the day before the exam i only read and re-read the essays i'd written. no science. no verbal reasoning.

Thank you DroghedaTutor

I will try to do that .... But 3 pages essay....? I wrote only one and half pages for each essay last 2 times.From somewhere i picked up few ideas like having 4 paragraphs and not too much volume needed etc. Hence i restricted myself from overexposing myself with too much grammatical and language style errors being a non native.

one more doubt

did u pick one theme to write or you discussed and incorporated all given themes into one essay for the given question?

Hypnos

Junoon wrote: »

thank you DroghedaTutor, mecci, hypnos

After seeing the results , especially after dropping from 54 to 38 in section 2 i felt like I was not good enough to pull through this or to become a doctor ...

I don't know ...why i felt so...

may be because i was hoping more on section 1 and section 3 scores to make the finish.And felt like i had to just hold the ground in essays just like the previous time where i scored 54.This result is hurting more so because English is my second language and i had a deep rooted feeling that i should focus more on other sections than section 2 .

On hindsight i feel like the choice of explanations and examples i used in my essays were of bit controversial and arguable. I think that would have seen as more extreme or inadequate to draw a generalization.
for example ...writing about Bill Clinton as a leader to follow and he admitted about monica lewinsky issue etc

I know its past by now but still would like to know how you wrote your essays...

did you prepare paragraphs useful for any essay question in advance or did u quote words from famous people or used proverbs etc in essays?

I definitely had a different approach to DroghedaTutor (no hate just a different approach) Here is what I did. I started each essay with an anecdote, used 2 quotes relevant to the topic at hand in the essays and wrote 1.75-2 pages on each question. Used vocabulary that I wouldn't use on a daily basis. I used persuasive, 'debate like' language to write a response to the topics. Never broke the two page mark, even in the practice essays I wrote at home.

Essay scores: 74, 70. (over 2 exams).

Its not about the quantity. Its about quality and expression. You can get a 74 with less than 2 pages of content for each essay!

DroghedaTutor

totally agree hypnos that the marks are for quality and expression.

each sentence has to matter. waffle will get you nowhere. the tone has to be bold and convincing. i used current affairs (recent news stories) as introductions in both my essays. it pulls the reader in and also gave me some firm ground to start on i.e. less need to think when under pressure. i think i got high marks for my essays because 1. they were content rich (zero waffle) 2. written in a convincing style and 3. they were 3 pages long. a page and a half would be just too short to put forward pros and cons in the argumentative essay or to express yourself fully in the reflective one.

HopefulGEM

Hypnos wrote: »

I definitely had a different approach to DroghedaTutor (no hate just a different approach) Here is what I did. I started each essay with an anecdote, used 2 quotes relevant to the topic at hand in the essays and wrote 1.75-2 pages on each question. Used vocabulary that I wouldn't use on a daily basis. I used persuasive, 'debate like' language to write a response to the topics. Never broke the two page mark, even in the practice essays I wrote at home.

Essay scores: 74, 70. (over 2 exams).

Its not about the quantity. Its about quality and expression. You can get a 74 with less than 2 pages of content for each essay!

I can certainly back up hypnosis advise. I used his method and got 68:)

federerisbetter

Well done to all who got results yesterday. Just wondering if anyone has information about course fees for 2014/15 - have UCD published this information yet? Can't seem to find it on their website. If anyone had a breakdown of the different fees for the different universities that would be brilliant.

Junoon

Thank you guys ,


did u all write based on one theme in the given 5 or u connected them all to write your essays? . I think i tried to connect them all in the question about genes and human evolution.


I will certainly put my efforts in to section 2 . I am 33 now and my desire to become doctor is very strong and i really want to get it.

I decided to sit in for UK

Hopefully when i turn 34 in 2015 i could start GEM if my persistence and luck prevails all odds ..

I guess that would be too late by then ...i mean starting at 34 and finishing by 39.

Hypnos

federerisbetter wrote: »

Well done to all who got results yesterday. Just wondering if anyone has information about course fees for 2014/15 - have UCD published this information yet? Can't seem to find it on their website. If anyone had a breakdown of the different fees for the different universities that would be brilliant.

http://www.ucd.ie/registry/adminservices/fees/undergraduate2014.html

This is the link to the 2014/2015 academic year fees. However they still haven't published the fees for graduate entry medicine. Last year it was €14,915. Hoping it stays that way. The loan covers that amount x4 (for the four years). Any increase in fees must be covered by us since the banks won't cover it.

The fees are the same in UCD, UCC, UL and a fair bit higher in RCSI. The bank still only gives 60K even for RCSI. The fees for this year shouldn't change because we pay a lot as it is but that just might be wishful thinking on my part. I don't think they will

Hypnos

Junoon wrote: »

Thank you guys ,


did u all write based on one theme in the given 5 or u connected them all to write your essays? . I think i tried to connect them all in the question about genes and human evolution.


I will certainly put my efforts in to section 2 . I am 33 now and my desire to become doctor is very strong and i really want to get it.

I decided to sit in for UK

Hopefully when i turn 34 in 2015 i could start GEM if my persistence and luck prevails all odds ..

I guess that would be too late by then ...i mean starting at 34 and finishing by 39.

I never connected essays intentionally. There was one where it was just naturally connected but I have never tried to do that. It would require too much effort for 30mins.

There are people who start in their 40's too. It's not too late if that's what you want. The only potential problem you can come across later down the line is surgery. I was told by a surgeon that they favor younger candidates for surgery positions because they take such a long time to train and fine motor skills do deteriorate slowly with age.
It might be too late only if you were dead set on becoming a surgeon otherwise you're good to go. There are a few UCD students in their 30s.

Junoon

Hypnos wrote: »

I never connected essays intentionally. There was one where it was just naturally connected but I have never tried to do that. It would require too much effort for 30mins.

There are people who start in their 40's too. It's not too late if that's what you want. The only potential problem you can come across later down the line is surgery. I was told by a surgeon that they favor younger candidates for surgery positions because they take such a long time to train and fine motor skills do deteriorate slowly with age.
It might be too late only if you were dead set on becoming a surgeon otherwise you're good to go. There are a few UCD students in their 30s.

thanks again ....

So I will prefer to take one idea to write an essay from the given choices .

Flange/Flanders

Hypnos wrote: »

I never connected essays intentionally. There was one where it was just naturally connected but I have never tried to do that. It would require too much effort for 30mins.

There are people who start in their 40's too. It's not too late if that's what you want. The only potential problem you can come across later down the line is surgery. I was told by a surgeon that they favor younger candidates for surgery positions because they take such a long time to train and fine motor skills do deteriorate slowly with age.
It might be too late only if you were dead set on becoming a surgeon otherwise you're good to go. There are a few UCD students in their 30s.

Hi Hypnos

Yeah there's a few students in their 30s in UCD and a lot in their late 20s. In fact, I think there's a student in their mid 40s going into GEM2 in RCSI.

Confused1987

Just some information on UL for anyone who is thinking of it, forgive me if I'm repeating anything that's already been mentioned!

Rang the CAO yesterday and they confirmed that UL was 53 last year, no random selection, so everyone on 53 got in. She obviously couldn't confirm anything for this year but kinda eluded to it staying the same or maybe a very small drop, but again this was just from her tone!

Also rang all the banks and visited some today, AIB no longer do the tailored loan for GEM, so it is Ulster Bank who I am waiting to hear back from and BOI who gave me all the information and seemed most clued in to the needs of the student!

The BOI loan is exactly what the tuition fees are over four years, but it is given in a €15,000 first year loan, €30,000 second and third and then €15,000 final year. From what I gathered this means that only between second and third year can the loan be compounded, but not sure! The interest rate during the time is 6.4% and then once you finish this jumps to between 8-9%, usually giving you about 7 years to repay the principal and int!

Feel free to add to this if anyone has anything further! So nice to have these results, just have to wait for the CAO now!!

Hope this helps!!

Lub

Thanks for the info Confused, that's really helpful. I thought only UB offered the loan for UL! Will you let us know when UB get back to you with some of the details?

Confused1987

Lub wrote: »

Thanks for the info Confused, that's really helpful. I thought only UB offered the loan for UL! Will you let us know when UB get back to you with some of the details?

Yeah course I will indeed, I'm in a giving mood!!! Got 53 yesterday with my first GAMSAT after studying and working in finance so just happy to be considered for a place hopefully!

Also again for anyone thinking of UL, look up the Quigley residence, it's reserved for just GEM students, it's right beside the medicine building!

Hypnos

Confused1987 wrote: »

Just some information on UL for anyone who is thinking of it, forgive me if I'm repeating anything that's already been mentioned!

Rang the CAO yesterday and they confirmed that UL was 53 last year, no random selection, so everyone on 53 got in. She obviously couldn't confirm anything for this year but kinda eluded to it staying the same or maybe a very small drop, but again this was just from her tone!

Also rang all the banks and visited some today, AIB no longer do the tailored loan for GEM, so it is Ulster Bank who I am waiting to hear back from and BOI who gave me all the information and seemed most clued in to the needs of the student!

The BOI loan is exactly what the tuition fees are over four years, but it is given in a €15,000 first year loan, €30,000 second and third and then €15,000 final year. From what I gathered this means that only between second and third year can the loan be compounded, but not sure! The interest rate during the time is 6.4% and then once you finish this jumps to between 8-9%, usually giving you about 7 years to repay the principal and int!

Feel free to add to this if anyone has anything further! So nice to have these results, just have to wait for the CAO now!!

Hope this helps!!

I don't know who you spoke to but that information you received is false. I have the contract right here in front of me. Unless they changed the contract for the coming year I don't know why you got false info. This is the GEM BOI contract terms for my year. Here is the main information of use:


Total Credit Amount: €59,660

Duration of Credit Agreement: 168 months (14 years; 10 working, 4 in medschool)

Installments: €776 per installment (120 installments)
Monthly from 1st Nov 2017 (my first deduction; 4mo after you start working)

Total Amount: €93,175 (what you pay back incl. interest)


First 4 years interest @ 4.1%. Jumps to 7.5% upon graduation.

After you graduate your outstanding balance including interest is €66,033.

Total Cost of Credit: €33.515.20

There is a small surcharge for missing payments and other things of the sort that I won't spend time typing here.

You can pay the loan back as fast as you want or all at once if you win the lotto or whatever the case may be. Any extra you can throw at them will save you lots in the long run!

Confused1987

I spoke to a woman, Hilda, who is head of the bank of Ireland branch in UL.

I'm not arguing with what your contract says, I'm simply repaying what she told me about an hour ago!

I was surprised at the high interest rate she quoted me, as I thought it was about 4% or slightly more, which is obviously in line with your contract, but again, I'm just quoting her!

Hypnos

Confused1987 wrote: »

I spoke to a woman, Hilda, who is head of the bank of Ireland branch in UL.

I'm not arguing with what your contract says, I'm simply repaying what she told me about an hour ago!

I was surprised at the high interest rate she quoted me, as I thought it was about 4% or slightly more, which is obviously in line with your contract, but again, I'm just quoting her!

I know you weren't making it up I was just saying the info you got was a bit off there. All the loans from BOI are standard across all the GEM programmes in Ireland. You'd hope she's wrong with that interest rate.

Confused1987

If you don't mind me asking you must be in first year med currently are you? They won't issue any loans or even consider it until the CAO confirm your place from what I gather!

Hypnos

Confused1987 wrote: »

If you don't mind me asking you must be in first year med currently are you? They won't issue any loans or even consider it until the CAO confirm your place from what I gather!

Just finished GEM 1 in UCD, now on holidays till year 2 in September. That's right, you can't even apply until you show them proof that you accepted your place. You get that from the CAO by post and email once you accept the offer on your CAO account. You can use either of the two as proof that you accepted a place. Then you gather the remaining documentation necessary and go to the local branch and apply for the loan. They have a designated person who deals with the GEM loans and its best to talk to that person as they're well informed on the matter.

Roly91

Hello everyone, been watching this for a while so I thought I'd join in. Congratulations on GAMSAT results.

I'm really hoping to go to UL and applied for quigley residence about a month ago. I was told that there was no availability for 2014/2015 but got my second choice of cappavilla village, so hopefully I will see some of you there!

Confused1987

Roly91 wrote: »

Hello everyone, been watching this for a while so I thought I'd join in. Congratulations on GAMSAT results.

I'm really hoping to go to UL and applied for quigley residence about a month ago. I was told that there was no availability for 2014/2015 but got my second choice of cappavilla village, so hopefully I will see some of you there!

Kinda the same as the loan, but can they grant places in residence before any CAO offers have been sent?

Roly91

Confused1987 wrote: »

Kinda the same as the loan, but can they grant places in residence before any CAO offers have been sent?

Yes! I have an offer for residence and in don't have an offer ( I'm my last 2 weeks of my undergraduate degree) I had to pay €250 deposit, but if I don't get an offer I get it back.

I applied now as for my undergraduate degree I left accommodation a bit late and didn't like where I lived.

kanurocks

@Hypnos

Hypnos wrote: »

I don't know who you spoke to but that information you received is false. I have the contract right here in front of me........

Thanks a lot dude. Great information to have.

Tell me this, Oh wise GEM sage, most people in your course got it with a 58 last year, then there were a few who got in on the second round at 57 ??