The government now regulates the number of places offered to first-year medical students, making it highly competitive.
Raeesah Suleman, 18, a former student at Crawford College in Sandton who obtained seven distinctions and an average of 88%, failed to secure one of the 160 seats offered to first-year medical students at the University of the Witwatersrand this year.
Suleman said she was told only a week before registration last month that she had not been accepted.
“Our country is desperate for doctors, and yet our top students are not allowed to study medicine,” said Suleman’s uncle, Nazeer Mahomed.
Suleman is nevertheless determined to study medicine and has enrolled to study a BSc at the university. On completion, she will be eligible for a place in the university’s graduate entry medical programme, which allows 60 students, who have completed a relevant undergraduate degree, to start in third year.
It is a new programme introduced to help those students who could not get a first-year place an opportunity to try again.
Fellow Crawford College student Tasneem Seedat, who also did not get a place, said: “I know there are ratios to be kept and I can understand when it applies to courses such as accounting and so forth. But I feel that when it comes to medicine, you are dealing with peoples’ lives and potential doctors should be chosen on merit.”
Seedat, who is now studying accounting, added: “I considered pursuing medicine through the BSc programme, but I’ve heard it is still difficult to ensure a place in the medical class.”
Dr Derek Swemmer, registrar of the university, said acceptance into the university’s medical programme was highly competitive because of the government’s stipulated regulation and limitation of first-year entrants.
“The two biggest components (for acceptance) are the school-leaving performance and the health sciences assessments.
The health sciences assessment is an international test that rates the holistic potential of an applicant and provides diagnostic information about the individual applicants’ strengths and weaknesses in important areas of academic literacy, numeracy and scientific reasoning.
In addition, medical faculties have adapted their admissions policy after a directive from the department of health to ensure the racial composition of their first-year intake is demographically representative of the population.
“Applicants who do well at school but who do not fare well in the health sciences assessments tend not to be competitive.”
Swemmer said places were limited and this year’s applicants had very high maths and science marks, making it very cutthroat.
“We have limited seats and we receive 10 times the number of applications. Only the best of the best are chosen.”
Additional reporting by Shubnum Khan