hey yall 😔

i need adviceeee. after highschool i was planning to do the bachelor of oral health at uni melb which originally required a 87 atar, but their updated course booklet says that the atar requirement is now 94!!!! The jump between atars was so high that now I feel discouraged because I know it will be hard for me to achieve a 94 atar, especially since some of my subjects scale down. Plus oral health is like super competitive to get into sunce theres a limited amount of seats 🙁
I’m dead set on oral health, and cant even do something like bachelor of science at uni melb because I dont do methods. Can anyone give advice on relevant courses I could do that will lead me to become a OHT/dentist. Also tips to achieve a 94 atar with the subjects I’m doing:

english language
literature
health and human development
business management
general mathematics
biology (study score of 35)

trying to stay optimistic!! my glass is half full

As someone who literally only does poor scaling subjects this year (every single subject scales down), it can make it harder (and it can be very frustrating) but it is still definitely possible to reach an ATAR of 94, but it's also worth looking into ATAR requirements further as many universities have lowered ATAR requirements if your financially disadvantaged, from a rural/regional area or other factors like that.
Plus Melbourne Uni's lowest selection rank last year was still around an 87 (87.15) so you should still be alright.
You got this!

First off, some classic advice: shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars. Try your hardest and attempt for a 94 ATAR. You never know what you’ll get until you receive your score and who knows? You might surprise yourself! Also, remember that selection ranks change yearly, so you don’t know what will happen when you apply in the future; it could drop next year, for example, purely due to low demand.

My second piece of advice? Have a back up plan, just in case: La Trobe and Homesglen both have Oral Health courses. (La Trobe also has a bachelor of dentistry but it’s also super competitive.) The only catch with La Trobe is the location - it’s in Bendigo, so might be some decent travel if you live in Melbourne. Otherwise, you can attend Holmesglen.
If you don’t like those options, I would recommend:

  • internal transfer - start with an Arts degree at UoM, transfer into oral health later.
  • bridging course - take methods bridging course, get into Science at UoM and transfer into oral health.
  • external transfer - take a closely related course at another Uni and transfer into UoM’s Oral health later.
  • postgraduate route - fulfil the prerequisites for the Doctor of Dental Surgery and apply for that. This is much longer but you’ll be a dentist rather than an OHT this way.

You will need to do more research than this but hopefully that gives you a starting point. 🙂

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