University Admissions Guide

New Zealand students planning to study in Australia

Year 12 Australian students can apply to study Medicine. Year 13 in New Zealand is equivalent to Year 12 in Australia. This means that, just as Australian school-leavers can apply to study Medicine, so can New Zealand school-leavers. Students are not required to do the first year HSFY, BHSc or BSc.

The Australian education system treats New Zealand citizens as domestic interstate students. As ‘domestic’ students, New Zealand citizens are entitled to study at Australian tertiary institutions without requiring a student visa. In addition, New Zealand citizens will be charged domestic student fees rather than international student fees, however they are not usually eligible for Australian student loans. For information on financial assistance, please visit www.studyassist.gov.au.

If you plan to study at an Australian university and have completed NCEA Level 3, or are in your final year of NCEA Level 3:

1. Provide your New Zealand National Student Number (NSN) when applying.
2. Check that your school has set your tertiary release indicator (privacy flag) on the school management system to "Yes". If it’s “No” the Australian Tertiary Admission Centres and Australian and New Zealand universities can’t access your results. The Tertiary Admission Centre (TAC) works on behalf of the universities within their state/territory (e.g., UAC, VTAC, SATAC, TISC, QTAC, etc.) Some universities require students to apply directly to them for admission to particular courses. NSW requires students to apply to the university faculty and UAC.
3. The TAC or university will log into a portal on the NZQA website to access your results records and Academic scores in early January using National Student Numbers (NSNs) provided by students. Tell the Australian TAC or university you applied to if your results change after the January results release due to a result of the review and reconsideration process or if results are reported late. This is so they can log into the NZQA website to obtain your updated records and Academic score. When you apply to a university, the TAC for that state will convert your high school results into an ATAR.

NZQA has stated that they work hard to achieve the earliest possible release date of annual NCEA assessment results. However, the results release date of the NZ assessment cycle may not always satisfy the first-round cut-off dates of all the Tertiary Admissions Centres.

For details about graduate entry medicine courses, see the GEMSAS website (note that Monash, University of Sydney and Flinders University have graduate entry medicine courses that are outside the GEMSAS system). International students should contact and apply directly to universities.