How many undergraduate medicine programs are there in Queensland?

Six school-leaver pathways: the University of Queensland, Griffith, the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of Southern Queensland, CQUniversity and James Cook University. USQ and CQUniversity are regional pathways that lead into the UQ regional MD rather than degrees of their own.

Can you get into medicine in Queensland without the UCAT?

Yes. James Cook University requires no UCAT at all and selects on ATAR and interview, with rural and tropical health intent weighted. Griffith and the Sunshine Coast rank on ATAR and use the UCAT only as a tiebreaker, so a weak UCAT costs far less there than at UQ.

What ATAR do you need for medicine in Queensland?

Published hurdles are 95 at UQ, the Sunshine Coast, USQ and CQUniversity, 99 at Griffith, and 90 at James Cook. Griffith ranks on the ATAR, so the hurdle and the competitive score are close together there; James Cook splits the decision evenly between ATAR and interview, so its 90 hurdle behaves very differently.

Is it harder to get into Queensland medicine from interstate?

In practice, yes. Applicants report that UQ now favours Queensland residents heavily, with a substantially higher UCAT needed from interstate, and the regional pathways at USQ and CQUniversity are built around regional Queensland intake.

Undergraduate medicine in Queensland: UQ, Griffith, JCU, Sunshine Coast, USQ and CQU compared

The medicine pathways in Queensland

Everything below is published selection criteria — the hurdle you clear to be considered, whether the UCAT is used, whether there is an interview, and what carries the final offer. None of it is a cut-off: no Australian university publishes the score where its offers ran out.

University	Program	UCAT	Interview	ATAR hurdle	What decides the offer
University of Queensland	MD provisional entry — 3 yrs bachelor then MD 4 yrs	Yes	Yes (MMI)	95	Interview 50%, ATAR 25%, UCAT 25%
Griffith University	B Medical Science (MD provisional entry) — 2 yrs then MD 4 yrs	Tiebreak	No	99	ATAR, with the UCAT splitting ties
University of the Sunshine Coast	Provisional entry — 3 yrs bachelor then MD 4 yrs	Tiebreak	No	95	ATAR, with the UCAT splitting ties
University of Southern Queensland	B Medical Science (Medicine Pathway) → UQ regional MD	Yes	Yes (MMI)	95	Interview 50%, ATAR 25%, UCAT 25%
CQUniversity	B Medical Science (Pathway to Medicine) → UQ regional MD	Yes	Yes (MMI)	95	Interview 50%, ATAR 25%, UCAT 25%
James Cook University	Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery — 6 yrs	No	Yes	90	ATAR 50%, interview 50% — rural and tropical health intent weighted

Dentistry in Queensland

University	Program	UCAT	Interview	ATAR hurdle	What decides the offer
University of Queensland	Bachelor of Dental Science (Hons) — 5 yrs	Tiebreak	No	99	ATAR, then the UCAT including Situational Judgement as the tiebreak
Griffith University	Provisional entry to the DMD — 3 yrs then DMD 2 yrs	Yes	Yes (MMI)	90	ATAR 40%, MMI 40%, UCAT 20% — invitations on UCAT alone
James Cook University	Bachelor of Dental Surgery — 5 yrs	No	No	90	ATAR plus a scored written application and references

What actually matters here

USQ and CQUniversity lead into the UQ regional MD, not their own medical degrees. Same destination, different front door, and both are built around regional intake. If you are regional Queensland and your ATAR is around the mid-90s, these are frequently the strongest cards in the deck.

James Cook uses no UCAT whatsoever. Half ATAR, half interview, with genuine weighting for rural, remote, Indigenous and tropical health interest. It is the obvious first preference for anyone whose UCAT went badly and whose interest in regional practice is real.

Griffith is ATAR-ranked with the UCAT only splitting ties. A 99-plus is close to mandatory. A brilliant UCAT does not substitute for it.

UQ dentistry is the rare place your Situational Judgement band is actually counted. Most schools ignore SJT. UQ uses the full UCAT including SJT as the tiebreak behind a 99 ATAR threshold.

Applicants consistently report a strong Queensland preference at UQ. Local school leavers report admission well below the level interstate applicants report needing. That is not a published rule, but it is a consistent pattern.

Put your own numbers against these

Enter your UCAT and predicted ATAR and the calculator shows where you sit at every pathway on this page — including the interview score each one would need from you, and whether it treats you as a local or an interstate applicant.

Open the medicine odds calculator

If you live in Queensland

Queensland students have the deepest bench in the country, and the two regional pathways make the state unusually forgiving if you are outside the south-east corner. A regional Queensland applicant with a mid-90s ATAR has genuine routes that a metropolitan interstate applicant with the same numbers simply does not.

If you are applying from interstate

Queensland is one of the harder states to enter from outside. UQ, Sunshine Coast, USQ, CQUniversity and James Cook all favour local applicants, and interstate applicants report needing a markedly higher UCAT at UQ in particular. Griffith is the most state-neutral of the six, and it wants a 99-plus ATAR from everyone.

How to apply

Applications for Queensland go through QTAC. You can apply to more than one state, and most serious applicants do — each state runs its own admissions centre with its own fee and its own preference list. List every pathway you are eligible for and would actually attend, in true preference order: centres work down the list and stop at the first offer you qualify for, so a long shot listed above a likely option costs you nothing.

For the national picture, see which undergraduate medicine program to apply for in Australia — all 21 school-leaver pathways compared, with the shortlists that suit a strong UCAT, a strong ATAR, a rural background or a dislike of interviews.

The number still in your hands

Whichever pathway you lead with, the ATAR is on the list, and it is the only input with months of runway left. At the top of the range it is decided less by hours revised than by whether the same marks keep leaking out of the same places, paper after paper.

That is a measurement problem before it is a study problem. Most students cannot name the four errors costing them the most marks, because nobody writes them down — an error log fixes exactly that. errorboard does the logging for you: photograph your working, and it reads the page, names the mistake, categorises it, and files it by topic.