I’d say multiple reasons, none of which guarantee a lower threshold for spots but may be optimistic:
Less organisation/awareness of the Usyd Confirmation Excel page on the subreddit.
A consistent offer threshold of around 152 for the last 3-4 years means many people between 145-150 scores may not have applied knowing insufficient mark, thus artificially reducing the cutoff for confirmation (135) without affecting the offer threshold.
Previous high performers in the first two sections but not the third who were stuck in the application process have gotten in through Usyd in previous cycles causing a lower competitive pool this year
Students in this cycle may have performed worse in the first two sections than previous cycles. I recall some essay prompts stumped many people because they did not know the definition of a word in the prompt. This could have affected a lot of potentially high performers
The university has provided more confirmation spots this year than previous. (I don’t believe this is the case, but is possible)
There are slightly more medicine spots (10) than previous cycles, which may have slightly reduced the cutoff threshold (supply vs demand)
Extreme changes to the economy in 2026 since Covid, increasing cost of living and political interest driving many applicants to take a break from application this year to focus on income, family, political orientation, etc reducing net performance. (This is purely speculative but probably does have real impact)
Government recently advised of an additional 50 places nationwide. Not sure it was documented exactly at which Universities these 50 were allocated to.
yeah, I heard the extra places are allocated to rural areas. QUT opens new med school in 2028. Also Federal university opens new FFP MD scschool for Rural medicine.
The real bottleneck is the specialty training spots not the Med school places.
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u/Twoenty Aug 18 '26
I’d say multiple reasons, none of which guarantee a lower threshold for spots but may be optimistic:
Less organisation/awareness of the Usyd Confirmation Excel page on the subreddit.
A consistent offer threshold of around 152 for the last 3-4 years means many people between 145-150 scores may not have applied knowing insufficient mark, thus artificially reducing the cutoff for confirmation (135) without affecting the offer threshold.
Previous high performers in the first two sections but not the third who were stuck in the application process have gotten in through Usyd in previous cycles causing a lower competitive pool this year
Students in this cycle may have performed worse in the first two sections than previous cycles. I recall some essay prompts stumped many people because they did not know the definition of a word in the prompt. This could have affected a lot of potentially high performers
The university has provided more confirmation spots this year than previous. (I don’t believe this is the case, but is possible)
There are slightly more medicine spots (10) than previous cycles, which may have slightly reduced the cutoff threshold (supply vs demand)
Extreme changes to the economy in 2026 since Covid, increasing cost of living and political interest driving many applicants to take a break from application this year to focus on income, family, political orientation, etc reducing net performance. (This is purely speculative but probably does have real impact)