Materia Medica Malaysiana

All those with CGPA of 4.0 get to study medicine

Competition for the 910 places for medicine in public universities was less intense this year – all STPM and matriculation students with a CGPA of 4.0 who applied were successful.
This was largely attributed to a significant drop in the number of STPM straight A students and the stiff competition last year which deterred many from making medicine their first choice.
Higher Education Management Department director-general Prof Datuk Dr Hassan Said said of the 910 places for medicine, 595 went to students with a CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) of 4.0.
“This means that there are 315 students with a CGPA below 4.0 who were offered places for medicine,” said Prof Hassan. However, he could not provide the cut-off point for the course.
The number of STPM holders with 4As and 5As was 362, a drop of more than 50% compared to the 767 the year before. However, matriculation students with a CGPA of 4.0 last year was 1,247, compared to 1,263 this year.
Prof Hassan said he had personally looked into all the applications with a CGPA of 4.0. He discovered, for example, that one student was rejected for medicine because he had applied for the course at UM but did not have Biology, which is a prerequisite.
He added that many with a CGPA of 4.0 who applied for medicine did not get their first choice university.
“Many put Universiti Malaya as their first choice but UM can only take 200 students,” he told a press conference yesterday when announcing this year’s public university admission figures.
He said he wanted to avoid last year’s situation where 128 students, mostly STPM holders, with a CGPA of 4.0 failed to get places to study medicine.
Last year, more than half of the record number of 1,774 matriculation and STPM students with a CGPA of 4.0 competed for 779 places. The cut-off point for medicine last year was a CGPA of 4.0 while the year before it was 3.88.
Unlike in previous years, the cut-off points for critical courses this intake were not made available due to technical setbacks. Neither could Prof Hassan give a breakdown of the number of applicants from matriculation and STPM and the success rate of the two groups.
He said this was because there were now two ministries involved – matriculation comes under the Education Ministry – and compilation of the information took time.
Asked how students were going to appeal their offers without knowing the cut-off points, he said students who were not offered one of their eight choices should try for courses that were less competitive.
Applications for places in public universities were up by 22.2% – from 85,966 last year to 105,014 – with 64,877 students qualifying for entry.
The 39,976 who have been offered places at 14 public universities will begin their undergraduate studies on July 3. There was a marginal difference in the percentage of bumiputra, Chinese and Indian students who were offered places between this year and last year (see Chart 1).
“Meritocracy is like a yo-yo. One year up, one year down,” Prof Hassan said of the now four-year-old system of admission where racial quotas no longer apply and matriculation and STPM results are pegged against each other.
Among the critical courses, fewer places were available for dentistry and accounting as universities were overstretched last year to accommodate the large number of top scorers.