GEMSAS Interviews and Preferences: 2027 Intake

GEMSAS Interviews and Preferences: 2027 Intake

For the 2027 GEMSAS intake, interviews ran in September and October 2026 and main place offers went out from late October to early November 2026. Additional offers run from late November 2026 to January 2027. If you hold an offer now, one rule outranks the rest: decline it, or let it lapse, and GEMSAS will not consider you for another offer this intake.

The GAMSAT gets you to the interview. The decisions after it are about preferences: you interview at one school only, your score can travel down your preference list, and the place types you tick limit what you can be offered. This page starts with the reader holding or waiting on an offer, then sets out the rules to use when you rank schools for 2028.

Every GEMSAS page quoted below was checked on 7 November 2026. The school details come from each school's entry in the GEMSAS Medical Schools Admissions Guide for the 2027 intake. GEMSAS is for domestic applicants only; international applicants apply to each university directly.

Where the 2027 cycle stands

From GEMSAS key dates for the 2027 intake:

GEMSAS's offers page adds: "Unsuccessful applicants are automatically considered for any additional offers in the same intake and may reapply in future intakes." You do not need to do anything to stay in the running for an additional offer.

If you hold a 2027 offer

GEMSAS's how to apply page:

"If you receive and decline a course offer (or allow it to lapse), you will not be considered for another offer in that intake"

Two consequences follow:

1. Hoping for a higher preference is not a plan. Declining your offer to wait for a school higher on your list ends this intake for you. Only an offer you accept keeps a place.
2. Watch the deadline in the offer email. GEMSAS says the offer email "will include advice about how to accept or decline the offer and enrol in the course, and the associated deadlines." A lapsed offer counts as a declined one.

If you accept a place outside GEMSAS, GEMSAS asks you to email it "as soon as possible. This allows interviews and offers to be made to other applicants without delay."

If you have conditions to meet, such as final results for 2026 study, the date for applicants offered a place by mid-December is COB 23 December 2026.

How GEMSAS preferences work

From the how to apply page:

• "You can select up to six medical school preferences"
• "For each preference, nominate the types of places you are willing to accept (e.g. CSP, BMP, Full-fee)"
• "Rank your preferences in order. If you are not offered your higher preference, you will be considered for lower preferences."

And from the interviews page:

"If you are not offered a place at the school where you were interviewed, your standardised score may be considered by other schools on your preference list."

"You will receive one interview offer only from a GEMSAS application." The one exception GEMSAS names is the University of Melbourne's direct pathways (Guaranteed Entry, MD Rural and Indigenous MD Student Entry), which may add a second interview.

Place types narrow your offers

GEMSAS's offers page lists three place types: Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP), Bonded Medical Places (BMP), and full-fee places. Its advice: "To maximise your chances of receiving an offer, you should consider selecting all place types. Limiting your selection reduces the available places that can be offered to you."

Schools differ on how they use your ticks:

Full-fee places exist only at Macquarie, Melbourne and Notre Dame Sydney. Melbourne and Notre Dame both warn that applicants who cannot pay a full-fee place should not list it.

Our view: for 2028, rank only schools you would accept, and tick every place type you could live with. Declining is final for the intake, and an unticked place type is a place you cannot be offered. The basis is GEMSAS's own two rules above.

The countercase: a bonded place carries a commitment. GEMSAS says "Students in a BMP commit to working in eligible locations after graduation." If you will not accept that, leave BMP unticked and accept the smaller pool. The same goes for full-fee places you cannot pay for.

Interview formats by school, 2027 intake

Each row is from that school's entry in the GEMSAS Admissions Guide. GEMSAS says "Academic results are not discussed" at interview.

Our count: 7 of the 10 GEMSAS schools name an MMI (Deakin, Macquarie, Melbourne, Notre Dame Fremantle, Notre Dame Sydney, UQ and Wollongong). Notre Dame's is recorded, not live, so you answer a camera, not a person.

Interview ranking also differs. Notre Dame weights "GAMSAT, GPA, Casper and bonus points" at "30:30:30:10", UWA uses "40% GAMSAT, 60% GPA", and Wollongong ranks on "a 50/50 combination of Casper score and UOW Admissions bonuses" once you clear its GPA and GAMSAT hurdles (GEMSAS interviews page).

Graduate-entry interview questions to prepare

The GEMSAS pages we read publish no question bank. The set below is our constructed set, written for this guide, not taken from any school. It follows the qualities the school entries name, such as Deakin's "commitment to rural and regional practice" and "a commitment to social justice".

1. Why medicine, and why now, after your first degree?
2. What did your degree or job teach you that a school leaver would not know?
3. Why are rural towns hard to staff with doctors, and what would you do about it?
4. Tell us about a time a team you were in disagreed. What did you do?
5. A friend in your cohort asks you to sign them in to a lecture they are skipping. What do you do?

Constructed example: a graduate "why medicine now" answer

Constructed example, written by us, not a real applicant's answer. Context (invented): a physiotherapy graduate, two years in practice.

Weak: "I have always wanted to help people, and medicine lets me help them more."

Revised: "Two years as a physio in a regional hospital put me next to the decisions I wanted to make. I would assess a patient after a fall, and the next step, imaging, medication, whether they could go home, belonged to the doctor. I started reading the notes to see how those calls were made. That is the job I want: owning the diagnosis, not the step after it. I know a BMP place would mean a bond after I graduate, and I have planned for it."

The revision does what a graduate answer must and a school leaver's cannot: it names a specific decision the applicant watched from inside the system. It also shows the applicant knows the cost, which matters because GEMSAS's place types carry real commitments.

Questions about GEMSAS

How many interviews can I get through GEMSAS?

One. GEMSAS: "You will receive one interview offer only from a GEMSAS application." Melbourne's direct pathways are the stated exception.

What happens if I decline my GEMSAS offer?

You are out of that intake. GEMSAS says you "will not be considered for another offer in that intake". You may reapply in a future year.

When are GEMSAS additional offers made?

From late November 2026 to January 2027 for the 2027 intake, if places remain. Unsuccessful applicants are considered automatically.

Does my interview score count at other schools?

It can. "Your interview score is standardised and may be used by your lower-preference medical schools."

Do I need a personal statement for GEMSAS?

The GEMSAS process pages we read list none. Deakin's Rural Training Stream scores a "written application", so check your schools' entries.

Review the writing you send next

The GEMSAS process pages we read ask for no essay. If you are also applying in the UK, get a free Quick Review of your UCAS medicine personal statement against GradPilot's UCAS medicine personal statement rubric, which reads for informed motivation and what you understand about a doctor's work. For other documents, browse the medical rubric catalog.

More guides for graduate and international medicine applicants:

• Australian undergraduate medicine interviews: UNSW, Auckland and the UCAT ANZ schools.
• UK graduate-entry medicine personal statement: the UK and Irish graduate routes.
• Graduate-entry medicine interview questions: UK formats and a career-changer answer.
• Medical school essays hub: every medical application guide.

Sources

Retrieved 7 November 2026, except where noted.

• GEMSAS, Key dates (2027 intake): application, interview and offer dates.
• GEMSAS, How to apply (2027 intake): six preferences, place types, declined or lapsed offers.
• GEMSAS, Interviews: one interview, standardised scores, interview ranking by school.
• GEMSAS, Course place offers and quotas: place types, offer rounds, place-type rules by school.
• GEMSAS Medical Schools Admissions Guide entries (2027 intake): ANU, Deakin, Griffith, Macquarie, Melbourne, Notre Dame Fremantle, Notre Dame Sydney, UQ, UWA, Wollongong: interview formats and dates.