The Curtin MMI: face to face in Perth, with Casper deciding who gets there (2027 entry)

Curtin Medical School offers "the only direct-entry Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in Western Australia", and it does interview. The 2027 Domestic Admissions Guide says the top ranked eligible applicants from each entry pathway "will be invited to attend a Multiple Mini Interview (MMI)", and that "Interviews are primarily face to face, with limited online interviews available where required". Curtin uses the term MMI itself, in its own document, which is not true of every Australian medical school.

What Curtin publishes and what it withholds are both unusual. The two selection formulas are given to the digit, including a Casper weighting of 35 per cent at the invitation stage that is among the heaviest in the country. The interview itself is described in a single paragraph. There is no station count, no station length, no reading time and no description of what happens between stations.

What Curtin publishes about the MMI

Casper is 35 per cent of getting invited, and nothing at all afterwards

Two different formulas run at two different moments, and the difference between them is where most Curtin applicants misdirect their preparation. Casper and your ATAR carry equal weight in deciding who is interviewed. Once you are in the room, Casper stops counting.

Three interview rounds, and which one you are in

Curtin does not run one interview period. It runs three, and they are not alternatives you choose between. Which round you sit is decided by where you live and whether your actual ATAR has arrived, and each round draws on a different academic number.

The first-preference condition on the mid-January round is easy to miss and cannot be undone. If Curtin is not your first TISC preference on 28 December in the year you apply, that round is closed to you, whatever your ATAR turns out to be.

Which pathway you are on changes the facts

Rural applicants

Up to 25 per cent of places go to Western Australian, Northern Territorian and South Australian applicants from a rural background, defined as at least ten years cumulatively or any five years consecutively in a Modified Monash Model MM 2 to 7 area since Year 1. For boarding-school students the family home counts as the primary residence, not the boarding school. Rural applicants compete for these places only against other eligible rural applicants, submit a separate rural entry form directly to Curtin Medical School by 13 October 2026 at 5.00pm AWST, and need that form signed by a recognised community member who is not a relative or a Curtin staff member.

Equity applicants

The equity pathway is for Western Australian school leavers who qualify for Curtin's StepUp bonus scheme, which adjusts an eligible ATAR by five points to a maximum of 99.95. There is nothing extra to submit if your school is on the StepUp list: WA school leavers eligible for the bonus are considered for equity places automatically. Applicants claiming StepUp on financial hardship grounds do have to apply separately. Equity applicants compete only against other equity applicants, and a WA school leaver who qualifies as both rural and equity is considered under both.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants

This pathway differs at almost every step. Applicants apply directly to Curtin Medical School rather than through TISC, and Curtin states they "do not need to submit a TISC application, sit the UCAT ANZ or sit the Casper Test". Applications close 13 October 2026 at 5pm AWST and need a letter confirming Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent stamped with the common seal of an Indigenous community organisation. Selection then runs in two stages: a Formal Yarning Session with the Curtin Medical School Aboriginal Health Team exploring motivation, support structures, values and readiness, and then, for shortlisted candidates, an invitation to the MMI in the December or January round. Successful applicants attend a three-day pre-orientation program in February.

International applicants

International applicants apply directly to Curtin or through a registered agent, with no TISC application, no UCAT ANZ and no Casper. The ranking is different too: offers are made on academic merit and interview performance "in the ratio of 40:60", so the interview is worth more here than in any domestic Curtin pathway. Interviews can be conducted online, and the international guide is the only Curtin document that names a platform and a duration, advising candidates to hold "a Microsoft Teams meeting for up to an hour uninterrupted". Conditional offers follow about two weeks after the interview.

What Curtin does not publish

Curtin publishes its selection arithmetic more precisely than most Australian medical schools and its interview mechanics less precisely than most. Both are worth knowing before you start preparing.

The shape of the interview is the largest gap. Neither 2027 guide gives a number of stations, a length per station, a reading or thinking time, a total duration, or a description of how you move between stations. Nothing states whether a station has one assessor or several, whether any station involves an actor or a role play, or whether written prompts are posted outside each room in the way applicants expect from an MMI elsewhere.

Scoring is equally closed. There is no rubric, no list of assessed domains, no scale, no minimum interview score and no cut-off rank, and Curtin says plainly that it cannot give individual application feedback and will not disclose notional ATARs. For online interviews there is no published platform for domestic applicants, no technical requirement and no stated contingency if the connection fails, though the international guide names Microsoft Teams for that cohort.

Adjustments are handled at arm's length. Test accommodations for UCAT ANZ and Casper are directed to Pearson VUE and Acuity Insights, and Curtin states it "will not make adjustments or provide consideration" for either test. Special consideration runs centrally through the TISC Educational Access Scheme rather than through the Medical School. No page describes an adjustment process for the interview itself, and no deadline or contact point for one is published, though Curtin does invite applicants with a disability to email the MBBS Course Coordinator early for a confidential discussion about the inherent requirements.

Preparing for an interview nobody has timed for you

Everything above is published by Curtin. This section is MedCoach's preparation advice, and it follows from this specific format rather than from general interview technique.

The person opposite you may not be a doctor

Curtin's own recruitment page draws the line explicitly. Its OSCE examiner role is "Medical practitioners only", while the MMI interviewer role is "Open to all health professionals". Expect a nurse, a pharmacist, a physiotherapist or a paramedic as readily as a doctor, and drop any answer that depends on shared clinical shorthand. Explain your reasoning in plain terms, the way you would to a colleague in a different discipline.

Rehearse in a room, not on a screen

Most applicants now practise over video, because that is how most Australian medical interviews run. Curtin is one of the few that does not. Walking into a room, sitting down opposite someone, resetting after a station that went badly and reading a prompt under time pressure are physical skills, and they are the ones that decay when all your practice happens sitting at a desk. Stand up between practice questions. Have someone show you into the room.

Build answers that survive an unknown clock

Because no station length is published, you cannot rehearse to a fixed timer the way a UQ applicant can. Take one scenario and deliver it at three minutes and again at seven. If it only works at one length it is a script rather than a structure. A structure that survives both, moving from the issue to the people affected to the competing considerations to what you would do and why, fits whatever the prompt turns out to be.

Do not let Casper eat your December

Casper decides whether you are interviewed and then disappears from the offer formula. Sit it well, on one of the three published dates, and then stop thinking about it. From the moment your invitation arrives, the only variables still moving are your actual ATAR and your interview, and the interview is the larger of the two at 40 per cent against 40 for academic merit and 20 for UCAT.

Plan for the round you are actually in

A WA school leaver interviewed in the December round is being ranked on a Predicted ATAR from Year 11 results, days after finishing WACE exams. An interstate applicant sits an online interview seven weeks later, in late January, with results long since settled. Those are different preparation problems on different timelines, and the December one is far more compressed than applicants expect.

Most applicants preference more than one school, and the formats differ far more than the shared label suggests. The national interview guide compares all of them, the interview offer and date guide sets out the wider 2027-entry calendar, and the UWA guide covers the other Western Australian medical program, which publishes eight numbered stations of seven minutes each and runs them online.