More students with lower Leaving Cert points get medicine
The combined points in the Leaving Certificate and the Health Professions Admission Test (HPAT), introduced in 2009 to widen access beyond highest-performing school leavers, rose by between nine and 13 points for all five undergraduate medicine degrees.
A planned review of the system is already underway. The system caused controversy in its first two years because of the perceived disadvantage to students with more than 550 out of a maximum 600 Leaving Certificate points. Up to 2008, the minimum points needed for CAO Round 1 entry to any of the five undergraduate medicine degrees was 570.
But figures collated by the Irish Examiner reveal that this year’s intake of around 450 future doctors includes students with as few as 515 points. They are among the 39 school leavers admitted this week by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland — 20 points lower than required for Round 1 entry there a year ago.
Such figures suggest progress has been made on the target to widen careers in medicine beyond the 2% with the best Leaving Certificate results in the country.
But this, and falls of five to 10 points in the Leaving Certificate results needed for entry to the other four undergraduate medical schools, are offset by rising scores in the HPAT.
The test of logical reasoning, interpersonal understanding and non-verbal reasoning is aimed at identifying candidates suited to the medical profession. Average students among 3,010 who sat it this year scored more than 150 out of 300.
In 2009, the lowest known score of any successful candidate at this stage was 153 and last year at least 161 was needed for first round entry. But these scores have now risen to a minimum 170 at NUI Galway — up from 161 a year ago — and by nine to 181 at Trinity College Dublin, where a combined Leaving Certificate-HPAT score of 741 points was yesterday’s cut-off, including students with 535 in the Leaving Certificate.
At University College Dublin, where fewer undergraduate places have been offset by more medicine places for graduates, candidates with 10 fewer Leaving Certificate points than a year ago have been admitted. But the lowest HPAT score of those offered a place was 180 — 15 more than last year.
As debate about alternatives to the entire points system for college entry intensifies, the experience of the medical school admissions of the last three years is likely to be scrutinised carefully by education authorities and student representatives.
Third level bosses are understood to have mixed views of the HPAT system to date, but its critics have said it merely opens up access to those who can afford to study specifically for the aptitude test. Even though the HPAT test is designed not to be an exam for which students can be given extra preparation assistance, private preparatory courses have emerged in the last two years for those sitting the test each February.
Professor Kathleen Lynch, head of equality studies at University College Dublin (UCD), has described the HPAT as a new barrier for low-income students.
