26 January 2023
Janene Pearce
By email:
[email address]
Dear Janene
I refer to your information request dated 1 December 2022 made under the Official Information Act
1982 (the Act). You have requested information in relation to UCAT scores for entry to the University
of Otago’s Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) and Bachelor of Dental Surgery
(BDS) programmes in 2022 via the Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) category.
We note that on 19 January 2023, we extended the time limit by which we must make a decision on
your request of 1 December 2022, to 26 January 2023.
Please see below our response to your request.
1. MB ChB:
If Verbal Reasoning threshold was set at the bottom 20th percentile (scores in the top 80%
met the threshold), what was the minimum mark accepted?
The minimum accepted score at or above the bottom 20th percentile was 520.
If Situational Judgement threshold was set above the bottom 10th percentile (scores in the
top 89% met the threshold), what was the minimum mark accepted
The minimum accepted score above the bottom 10th percentile was 479.
2. BDS:
Verbal Reasoning – threshold set at the bottom 22nd percentile (scores in the top 78% met
the threshold). What was the minimum mark accepted?
The minimum accepted score at or above the bottom 22nd percentile was 520.
Decision Making – score of 630 or above met the threshold. What was the minimum mark
accepted?
The minimum score accepted was 630.
3. Please advise the number of applicants who met the academic mark for BDS and MB ChB
but did not meet the UCAT threshold for HSFY General category
This part of your request is declined pursuant to section 18(f) of the Act as the requested
information cannot be made available without substantial collation and research.
The University receives student UCAT results directly from UCAT. Once the University receives the
UCAT results from UCAT, cut-offs for the respective programmes are applied, and students who do
not meet the thresholds are automatically made ineligible for admission. All of this occurs prior to
academic scores being finalised, so the academic scores of applicants who did not meet the UCAT
thresholds are either unconfirmed or missing in the records held by the University. Therefore, of the
applicants who did not meet UCAT thresholds, it is difficult to differentiate between applicants who
may not have met the academic score requirements, and those who did meet the academic score
requirements.
In order to compile this information for you, our staff would need to look at individual student
records from multiple sources to manually identify the academic scores of students who did not
meet the UCAT thresholds. Given the number of applicants to the 2022 MB ChB and BDS
programmes via the HSFY General category, this is not practically possible as it would require
extensive manual research and collation. As noted above, there may also be cases where the
University did not hold complete records for students.
However, in case it is helpful, there were 309 applicants to the 2022 MB ChB programme via the
HSFY General category. 105 of these applicants received offers to enter the programme. There were
197 applicants to the 2022 BDS programme via the HSFY General category. 59 of these applicants
received offers to enter the programme.
I trust that this information will be helpful.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your information request, section 28(3) of the Act
provides you with the right to ask an Ombudsman to investigate and review this response. However,
we would welcome the opportunity to discuss any concerns with you first.
Yours sincerely
Kelsey Kennard
Official Information and Compliance Coordinator
Office of the Registrar