The Sydney Double Degree Medicine Assessment Day: a group interview and a written task

The Double Degree Medicine Program is the only school-leaver route into medicine at the University of Sydney, and it comes in two versions: the Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine, and the Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Medicine. Its selection stage is not an MMI and Sydney does not call it an interview. It is an Assessment Day, held online, and it combines a group interview with a written assessment.

Sydney publishes it as an admission criterion in its own right: "Satisfactory performance in Assessment Day. Eligible applicants will be invited to attend an assessment process after ATAR (or other secondary education qualification) results are released. The assessment will be conducted online and will include both a group interview and a written assessment."

No admissions test is involved anywhere. Sydney does not appear among the Australian universities listed by the UCAT ANZ consortium, and the GAMSAT belongs to the separate graduate-entry MD. A DDMP student who completes the bachelor degree moves into the MD without sitting either test and without going through graduate-entry selection.

What the Assessment Day actually is, and what is not published

Sydney publishes the shape of the day and almost none of its mechanics. Two components are named, a group interview and a written assessment, and everything an applicant would want to rehearse against is left to the invitation email. That gap is worth stating plainly, because it is where third-party guesses fill in.

Who gets invited

Invitations are issued on results, not on applications. Sydney requires "An ATAR of 99.95* or equivalent" and lists the adjustment pathways beneath it: a minimum ATAR of 90 to be considered for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants, and a minimum of 99.5 for Regional and Remote Entry Scheme or MySydney applicants.

The 2027 entry timeline

The dates are tight enough that the calendar is itself a selection filter. Between ATAR release and the assessment there are two days, one of which contains an RSVP deadline at 2pm.

What Sydney asks you to have ready

The Assessment Day 1 document is mostly a technical checklist, which tells you something about how the day runs. It is a live Zoom assessment rather than a recorded upload, and a dropped connection is your problem to have prevented.

• A laptop or desktop computer with a camera and microphone. A phone is not offered as an option.
• The latest version of Zoom, downloaded from zoom.us on a computer, or the App Store or Google Play on a device.
• A wired internet connection for consistency where possible, and if not, a wireless connection reliable enough to complete the assessment process.
• Connection speed of at least 1 Mbps as a bare minimum, with 4 Mbps preferred, which Sydney suggests testing in advance.
• A headset with a microphone for clarity, with microphone and speakers tested before the day.
• A private and secure environment where you are alone for the assessment.

Preparing for a group interview

Everything above is Sydney's published information. This section is MedCoach's preparation advice, and it is shaped by the fact that a group interview is a genuinely different task from any MMI.

The skill being tested is how you behave around other candidates

In an MMI you are alone with an interviewer and the only variable is you. In a group interview the other applicants are part of the assessment environment, and the most common failure modes are opposite ones: dominating the conversation, or disappearing from it. Practise the middle. Make a contribution, then make room. Build on what someone else said and attribute it to them. Disagree with an idea while being obviously courteous to the person.

Practise on video with people you have never met

Group dynamics on Zoom are harder than in a room. Turn-taking is unnatural, interruptions are clumsy, and the temptation to talk over a pause is strong. Rehearsing with friends teaches you nothing about entering a conversation with strangers, so find a way to practise with people you do not know, and do it on camera rather than in person.

Do not neglect the written assessment

Half of the published shape of the day is written, and it attracts almost none of the preparation. Sydney publishes no length, format or topic for it. Practise writing a clear, structured argument under time pressure and by keyboard, since that is the only sensible reading of an online written assessment.

If you are applying to the graduate-entry MD instead, the Sydney medicine interview guide explains which graduate cohorts interview and which do not. The UNSW interview guide covers the other Sydney medical school, which interviews almost everyone it shortlists, and the national interview guide compares school-leaver formats across Australia.