Latest news with #Hpat
Irish Independent
18-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Independent
Big changes to CAO rules for entry to medicine courses announced
There have been concerns about students using grinds to improve Hpat scores Changes to entry requirements for studying medicine at university will see Leaving Cert results carry more weight. Applicants to study medicine are currently required to sit the Health Professions Admission Test (Hpat) in addition to the Leaving Cert.
Irish Times
17-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Changes announced to Hpat system for studying medicine
Medical schools have announced changes to the entry requirements for studying medicine following concerns that some students may have found a way to practise for aptitude tests known as the Hpat, or Health Professions Admission Test. Under the admissions process for medical schools, applicants are required to combine their Leaving Certificate results with those from the Hpat which was introduced in 2009 to assess skills deemed important for medicine. Those the Hpat assesses include reasoning, problem-solving and interpersonal skills. While the 2½-hour test was initially envisaged as one which candidates could not study for, there is now an extensive private tuition industry where students can spend up to €800 over 15 weeks to prepare for the assessment. [ Colleges to alter entry requirements for medicine amid concern applicants 'gaming' aptitude test Opens in new window ] The Hpat is marked out of a total of 300 points, which is added to a candidate's Leaving Cert score. For example, a student who gets 500 points in the Leaving Cert and 200 points in the Hpat gets a combined score of 700 points. About 3,000 students take the test each year, which is required to study undergraduate medicine at the University of Galway, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, UCC and UCD. University of Limerick also requires the Hpat for entry to its master's degree in occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. Under the revised plans, the maximum points the Hpat can deliver is to be reduced to 150 points. The changes are being announced now for the 2027 intake to allow potential applicants to make choices in advance of their two-year Leaving Certificate cycle. The changes will not affect those sitting their Leaving Certificates in 2025 or 2026. The Hpat was introduced under then minister for education Mary Hanafin , following concern that only those scoring very high Leaving Cert points were guaranteed entry to medicine. She said at the time that students would no longer need a 'perfect Leaving Cert' to enter medicine. However, concern grew that students who are able to afford extra support for their exams and Hpat tests are at a significant advantage when it comes to studying medicine. Latest Higher Education Authority data, for example, show about 33 per cent of medicine students are from affluent backgrounds, compared with 18 per cent of students overall. Only 3 per cent of medicine students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to 11 per cent overall. Announcing the modifications on Friday, the Irish Universities Association said the primary requirement to present both the Leaving Certificate result and Hpat result for the calculation of points for medicine will not change. [ CAO 2025: A guide to some lesser-known courses Opens in new window ] 'However, the way in which both Leaving Cert and Hpat points are counted will change. Leaving Certificate points above 550 will no longer be moderated, and the maximum possible Hpat points will be reduced from 300 to 150.' From 2027, the maximum combined Leaving Certificate and Hpat points for Medicine will be 775, being 625 from the Leaving Certificate and 150 from the Hpat. This will differ from the current maximum of 865 points made up of 565 points from the Leaving Certificate and 300 from the Hpat. The existing rule that the Hpat must be taken in the year of Cental Applications Office application will continue. Applicants will continue to need to meet the minimum entry requirements as well as the existing 480 points minimum requirement, all in the same sitting of the Leaving Certificate.
Irish Times
04-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Can students be ‘coached' to pass aptitude tests for entry to medical school?
Back when he was a student in 2012, John Gannon aced the aptitude test required for entry to undergraduate medicine. Of the thousands that sat the Hpat, or Health Professions Admission Test, that year, he says he scored in the top 1 per cent of candidates. These days Gannon is a specialist registrar in public health medicine, but he also does a sideline in private tuition for students preparing for the test. His course pledges to 'help students unlock their potential and secure a place in medicine' with courses such as weekend workshops (€150) or group classes for five weeks (€225) or 10 weeks (€450). The Hpat, a 2½-hour test that assesses qualities deemed important for medicine, such as reasoning, problem-solving and interpersonal skills, was initially devised as the kind of assessment that candidates could not study for. When the Hpat was introduced in 2009, the Australian Council for Educational Research (Acer), which devised the test, said it did 'not endorse any training college and actively discourages candidates attending them', adding: 'They are a waste of the candidates' (or their parents') money.' READ MORE Today, there is an extensive private tuition industry to service huge demand for help with the tests. Applicants can learn solutions to assessments, complete mock exams and avail of one-to-one tutoring – for a price. Grind schools such as the Institute of Education offer 10-week preparatory programmes for €675, while MedEntry – founded by two medical doctors – says its 'proven packages will help you ace the Hpat to gain entry into Ireland's top medical schools' for up to €1,695. This week The Irish Times reported that deans of medical schools want to significantly reduce the weighting of the Hpat for entry to study medicine amid equity concerns and evidence that many entrants benefit from being 'coached' for exams. Thousands of students complete the Hpat tests each year. Photograph: iStock So, can students really improve their performance in tests aimed at assessing generic skills suited to medicine rather than knowledge recall? A review by five medical faculties three years after its introduction found 40 per cent of successful applicants each year had improved their Hpat score after resitting. Dr Gannon says that while students can improve with practice, there is a misconception that coaching leads to dramatic score increases. 'In reality, students tend to improve most in section three (non-verbal reasoning), least in section two (interpersonal understanding) and moderately in section one (logical reasoning),' he says. The section on non-verbal reasoning requires students to find logical patterns within figures and use these patterns to arrive at the answer. While many students find this section the most difficult initially, discussion threads online show those who study it in detail begin to recognise the same patterns to the point where many admit to getting all these questions correct in mock exams. Dr Gannon says this appears to have led Acer to change the weighting of scores attached to the non-verbal reasoning section in recent years. Whereas all three sections were previously worth 33 per cent each, sections one and two are now worth 40 per cent each while section three on non-verbal reasoning is worth just 20 per cent. Ultimately, Dr Gannon says, there are aspects of the exam that cannot be learned with practice. 'Preparation can help to improve the approach to the exam and especially managing timing, but core skills like empathy and critical thinking can't be memorised like Leaving Cert content,' Dr Gannon says. David Ball, a senor manager with the Institute of Education, rejects suggestions that preparatory courses are somehow 'gaming' the system. Instead, he says, highly-motivated students simply want to prepare for whatever assessment they are facing. 'One of the reasons we do these courses is that once they are preparing, they are managing their stress,' he says. 'It gives students comfort that they are preparing for something important.' The Institute of Education, Leeson Street, Dublin Many parents and students, meanwhile, take exception to the idea that they are doing anything wrong by using all available means to boost their Hpat scores. 'My daughter just got 212 points in her Hpat this year and I most strongly refute the claim that she was 'gaming' the system in order to achieve this result, the consequence of hours and hours of hard dedicated slog and sacrifice on her part alone,' said one mother. 'Could the mirror please be turned back on those whose job it is to develop an appropriate system of entry to medical school in Ireland.' Another commented: 'Of course we invested in a Hpat course! It would be pretty poor household financial management not to do so. This decision was based on the logic that it's an exam and all exam outcomes can be improved with better preparation.' One reason behind the introduction of the Hpat was to address the fact the most affluent students with near-perfect Leaving Cert scores were much more likely to secure places in medicine. Not much, it seems, has changed. Latest Higher Education Authority data shows about 33 per cent of medicine students are from wealthy backgrounds, compared with 18 per cent of students overall. Only 3 per cent of medicine students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared with 11 per cent overall. However, the same patterns are evident for entry to high-points courses leading to elite careers, such as in banking and finance. Equity issues are structural and not exam-specific, argues Dr Gannon. 'Rather than dilute the Hpat, we should expand scholarships, outreach and ring-fenced places for underrepresented students, to level the playing field,' he says. Áine Hyland, professor emeritus of education at UCC, however, says any aptitude tests are not a good predictor or university performance in any discipline. International evidence shows students can improve their performance in aptitude tests by up to 20 per cent with systematic coaching, she says. This week, she produced a letter that she first wrote to university deans of medicine back in 2004 – when the Hpat was first proposed – warning that such tests would simply lead to 'a burgeoning of the grind school industry'. 'My prediction seems to have been proved accurate ' she says. Áine Hyland, professor emeritus of education at UCC. Photograph: Cyril Byrne Can you pass the Hpat? The Hpat used by Irish medical schools for entry into undergraduate medicine, consists of 114 multiple choice questions distributed across three sections. We have included one question from each of the sections: Q1: Logical reasoning and problem-solving Botanists studied a rainforest in Nicaragua that had been ravaged by Hurricane Joan in 1988. They found that in the following 10 years the number of tree species had increased by at least 200 per cent, and up to 300 per cent, in eight storm-affected plots. Other plots not affected by the hurricane showed little if any such increase. From this information, it can be concluded that: A. Hurricanes play an important role in ensuring the long-term survival of tropical rainforests. B. When the dominant trees in an area of tropical rainforest are destroyed, other species are given a chance to flourish. C. The overall life of a tropical rainforest is increased if large areas are occasionally levelled to the ground. D. The productivity of a tropical rainforest will be maximised if large areas are occasionally levelled to the ground. Q 2: Interpersonal understanding In the following passage, an adolescent boy talks about living with a physical disability: As I have been physically disabled all my life, I have managed to cope with the purely practical problems arising with a minimum of fuss. I felt no loss, because I had no feelings of 'normality' to compare with. One of my physical problems is that I am short, about 127 centimetres tall. I was constantly mistaken by strangers for a little kid. It's a real pain for a 16-year-old boy to be handed a kid's menu every time he enters a restaurant. It is even worse when mere coherent speech is greeted with awe. For the writer, the main problem with his disability is A. The embarrassment of being so short. B. Never knowing what it is to be 'normal'. C. Dealing with other people's preconceptions. D. Coping with the practical problems caused by his condition. Q3 : Non-verbal reasoning Arrange the five pictures so that they form a logical sequence. Then select the middle picture of the sequence and mark the corresponding letter (A, B, C, D or E) on the answer sheet. Hpat Answers: Q1 (B), Q2(D), Q3(E) Source: Hpat Ireland
Irish Times
03-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on Hpat: doctoring the sytem
The Health Professions Admission Test, or Hpat, was introduced in 2009 to broaden access to medical school by testing non-academic skills such as problem-solving. It was a variation of similar tests pioneered in Australia and had the laudable goals of not only producing better doctors but also leveling the playing field between those who could afford private schools and additional tuition and those who could not. Its creators, the Australian Council for Educational Research, claimed that it was neither possible nor worthwhile to study for the exam. However, they had not reckoned with Irish parents and the grind culture that has taken hold since the establishment of the first 'grind schools' in the 1970s. Middle class families continue to find new ways to game the CAO system. Hpat preparatory courses cost up to € 800 and would appear to deliver. Medical faculties report that most students who repeat the exam improve their score and a significant number who gain places do so on the basis of a repeated Hpat. The question as to whether the introduction of the test actually produced better doctors is hard to answer but is clear that the pendulum has swung back in favour of better-off applicants, if it ever truly swung away from them. Over a third of medical students are now from affluent backgrounds, according to the Higher Education Authority. This compares with 18 per cent for the student body as a whole. READ MORE Several medical schools now want to reduce the weight attached to the Hpat, which can add 300 points to a candidate's Leaving Cert result, although the average is near half that. Any changes will need to be signed off by their respective universities' academic councils and the Department of Education will no doubt have something to say. The proposal is worthy of serious consideration. The system as currently designed is not delivering as expected. However, any downgrading of the Hpat should be accompanied by alternative measures to ensure that students from less affluent backgrounds are fairly represented.
Irish Times
01-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Can you really be ‘coached' to pass aptitude tests for entry to medical school?
The deans of medical schools want to change entry requirements for studying medicine in Irish universities following concern that many applicants are being coached for tests aimed at determining their aptitude for working in the sector. Tell me more about these tests Applicants for undergraduate medicine are required to combine their Leaving Certificate results with the Hpat (Health Professions Admission Test), which was introduced in 2009 to assess skills deemed important for medicine, such as reasoning, problem-solving and interpersonal skills. While the 2½-hour test was initially envisaged as one that candidates could not study for, there is now an extensive private tuition industry where students can prepare for the assessment. How much are candidates paying for private tuition? There are lots of 'preparatory courses' available for students, who can spend up to €800 for a 15-week series of classes and mock exams. Typically, they are operated by so-called grind schools such as the Institute of Education in Dublin, Hewitt College in Cork and many others; in addition, there is something of a cottage industry among medical students who have done well in the test offering their services. READ MORE How widely used is the Hpat? About 3,000 students take the test each year, which is required to study undergraduate medicine at University of Galway, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, UCC and UCD. University of Limerick also requires the Hpat for entry to its master's courses in occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. Can you really be coached to do better in the Hpat? When it was introduced in 2009, the Australian Council for Educational Research (Acer), which devised the Hpat, said it did 'not endorse any training college and actively discourages candidates attending them. They are a waste of the candidates' (or their parents') money.' However, there is evidence that suggests they can pay off. A review by five medical faculties three years after its introduction found 40 per cent of successful applicants each year had improved their Hpat score after resitting it and so got a place in an undergraduate medical school. The report found the greatest improvement was in the non-verbal reasoning section. There have been adjustments to the weighting of components of the test and changes to rules around when candidates can sit the test over the years. Nonetheless, critics say those who can afford expensive preparatory and repeat courses retain a significant advantage. Is the issue of 'coaching' candidates a concern outside Ireland? Yes, it is an issue elsewhere. Studies highlight that in countries such as Germany and the UK, private companies offer expensive preparatory courses for similar medical aptitude tests. They, too, are grappling with ethical questions about equal access, as these courses may improve test results and thus increase the likelihood of admission for wealthier candidates. Interestingly, Australia combines the test with a structured interview process to help identify those suited to the profession. So, what changes are being planned to the Hpat? The Hpat is marked out of a total of 300 points, which is added to a candidate's Leaving Cert score. For example, a student who gets 500 points in the Leaving Cert and 200 points in the Hpat gets a combined score of 700 points. Under revised plans, the Hpat would be reduced to 150 points. This, say sources, means the test would carry the equivalent weight of about one extra subject for entry purposes. When will changes come into effect? The planned changes will require sign-off by the academic councils of universities. In theory, this should be simple, says sources. If implemented, they would probably have a two-year lead-in time from when the changes are announced. Why was the Hpat introduced in the first place? It was introduced following concerns that medical applicants needed to achieve 'a perfect Leaving Cert', while those with an aptitude for medicine were falling through the cracks. The system that came in – which is still in place – says that for school leavers to be eligible to compete for entry to undergraduate medicine they must achieve a minimum of 480 points, meet minimum subject entry requirement and complete the Hpat. Hpat scores are added to Leaving Cert points, although Leaving Cert points above 550 are moderated, with one point awarded for every five scored above that level.
