Health maintains high proportion of quota 2 admissions to medicine

After two years of testing a new quota 2 admission procedure for the medical degree programme, the faculty management team at Health is now adjusting the procedure. The Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI), which were included as the final part of the admission test and were intended to assess the empathy, robustness, communicative and collaborative skills of applicants via interview situations, are being omitted. But the quota 2 admission level of twenty per cent of the students remains.

From the spring of 2018, applicants will be admitted based on their average mark, which must be minimum six, together with a multiple-choice test known as the UniTest. The two steps have thus far formed the first two parts of the admission procedure. 

"Many employees have contributed to the MMI tests over the last two years and have done well. But we must recognise that this part of the admission procedure does not provide sufficient value in relation to the many resources we spend on it. In light of the faculty's financial challenges, we have therefore decided to abolish this part of the admission test," says Charlotte Ringsted, vice-dean for education at Health.

Applicants with lower average marks still get an extra chance

The quota 2 admission test was launched in 2016 concurrently with an increase in the share of quota 2 places from ten to twenty per cent for the medical degree programme. The objective was partly to give applicants who did not have a very high average mark an extra chance, and partly to admit applicants with other relevant competences besides the academic. There was also an additional objective of prevent drop-out by, among other things, admitting highly motivated applicants.

"We still wish to provide an extra chance for those applicants who do not have a very high average mark, but who have other experiences. We will therefore maintain the decision to admit twenty per cent of the students via quota 2. With the UniTest, we ensure an adequate cognitive level among the students and, at the same time, we get a more diverse group of students than the quota 1 admission provides, which we think is an advantage," says Charlotte Ringsted and continues:

"The specific competences we attempted to assess with the MMI interviews are competences which are important for all our students to have – also those admitted via quota 1. The development of these competences is therefore part of the degree programme and the training they receive, but this is not something that we will in future use as a basis for selecting applicants."

It is still too early to conclude whether the quota 2 admission test succeeded in reducing drop-out rates from the degree programme. Drop-out rates will be monitored regularly.

The quota 2 admission test to medicine from 2018 

• Applicants must have an average mark of at least six and they must comply with the requirements for required levels in a number of subjects.
• Applicants' cognitive competences are assessed using a multiple-choice test (UniTest) with around 100 questions. The tests cover e.g. applicants linguistic reasoning, their ability to think critically and their ability to critically assess quantitative information. The test was developed by an Australian research centre.
• Those who gain the highest scores in the test will be offered one of the 96 quota 2 places on the medical degree programme.  

Contact

Vice-dean for Education Charlotte Ringsted
Health, Aarhus University
Mobile: (+45) 9350 8222
Email: charlotte.ringsted@au.dk