Tēnā koe S

I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act request.

If we have any questions or need to seek clarification on any points we will be in touch soon. Otherwise, we will seek to respond to your request as soon as practicable and no later than 20 working days after the date your request was received (by 17 October 2024). If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will notify you of an extension of this timeframe.

Ngā mihi
Kelsey

Kelsey Kennard (she/her)
Official Information and Compliance Coordinator | Kaituitui Pārongo Ōkawa me te Tautukunga

University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Office of the Registrar and Secretary to the Council | Te Tari o Te Pouroki me te Kaituhi ki te Kaunihera

Tēnā koe S

I refer to your information request dated 19 September 2024 made under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act). You have requested information in relation to entry to the University's Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) programme via the Graduate General category.

Your request in its current form is very broad and complex and therefore we are likely to need to propose a charge or decline the request pursuant to section 18(f) of the Act as it will require substantial collation and research. This is particularly so given our systems do not record the information to the level of detail that has been requested, and therefore to fulfil parts of your request, it is likely that we would need to individually investigate the student records or application files of each applicant to collate the information you have requested. It is also likely that we do not hold some of the information you have requested - I note that we do not hold "cumulative GPA" scores for applicants to the MB ChB programme, we only hold weighted GPA scores. It is also very difficult for us to provide any data for 2025 applications as these are still being processed, and the University does not yet hold academic transcripts for all applicants yet.

However, this may not be necessary if the scope of your request can be clarified and/or refined so as to make the request practically manageable (for example, clarifying your questions, limiting the time period). For example, would the following information suffice?
1. minimum, mean, and maximum weighted GPA score to receive an offer to the 2023 and 2024 MB ChB programmes via the Graduate General category
2. number of Graduate General category applicants who were taking Pre-Christmas Summer School papers ahead of entry to the 2024 MB ChB programme (however, we note that our records only show the number of enrolments, rather than the number who completed the papers)

Alternatively, if there is other information you are interested in, or if you would like to refine your request in some other way, we would appreciate receiving this from you.

We will wait to hear back from you before we continue to process your request. Please note, any clarification or amendment of a request is considered to be a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum statutory timeframe for response - see section 15(1AA) of the Act.

Ngā mihi
Kelsey

Kelsey Kennard (she/her)
Official Information and Compliance Coordinator | Kaituitui Pārongo Ōkawa me te Tautukunga

University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Office of the Registrar and Secretary to the Council | Te Tari o Te Pouroki me te Kaituhi ki te Kaunihera

Tēnā koe S

Apologies for the delay in response, and thank you for amending your request as outlined below. We will continue to process your request as clarified.

If we have any further questions or need to seek clarification on any other details, we will be in touch as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will seek to respond to your request as soon as practicable and no later than 20 working days after the date your request was amended (by 24 October 2024). If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will notify you of an extension of this timeframe.

Ngā mihi
Kelsey

Kelsey Kennard (she/her)
Official Information and Compliance Coordinator | Kaituitui Pārongo Ōkawa me te Tautukunga

University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Office of the Registrar and Secretary to the Council | Te Tari o Te Pouroki me te Kaituhi ki te Kaunihera

Tēnā koe S

Please see attached the University of Otago's response to your Official Information Act request dated 19 September 2024 (clarified 26 September 2024).

Ngā mihi
Kelsey

Kelsey Kennard (she/her)
Policy Analyst | Kaitātari Kaupapa Here

University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Office of the Registrar and Secretary to the Council | Te Tari o Te Pouroki me te Kaituhi ki te Kaunihera