Overview
The Faculty offers the following undergraduate degree programmes :
- BSc in Speech-Language Pathology: 4 years of study followed by 1 year community service
- BSc in Audiology: 4 years of study followed by 1 year community service
- BSc in Occupational Therapy: 4 years of study followed by 1 year community service
- BSc in Physiotherapy: 4 years of study followed by 1 year community service
- MBChB (Medicine): 6 years of study, then 2 years’ internship and 1 year community service.
Eligibility for consideration
To be eligible for consideration, all applicants must
- have passed certain school-leaving subjects at specific minimum performance levels;
- have obtained a minimum overall Admissions Point Score (APS);
- have obtained minimum performance levels in the National Benchmark Tests (NBT);
- (if they have written the National Senior Certificate examinations) be eligible for admission to degree studies, or (in the case of non-South African school-leaving certificates) have matriculation exemption;
- be citizens or permanent residents of South Africa or of Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries that do not have health sciences faculties or whose health sciences faculties do not offer the health sciences programme the applicant wishes to study.
In addition to the above requirements, the following guidelines apply, with exceptions being considered on an individual basis and on merit:
- Applicants doing foundation programmes at tertiary level must generally have completed their foundation programmes, unless they would in any event be eligible for consideration based on their NSC or other school-leaving scores and their results in the National Benchmark Tests.
- Applicants who are already registered for a similar health sciences programme at another university and who wish to transfer to UCT are not normally considered (although such applicants may compete for admission to the first year of any programme).
- Applicants who have been refused re-admission by a Faculty at UCT or another tertiary institution.
- While the Faculty welcomes applications from applicants with disabilities, there may be some disabilities that would prevent someone from practising the relevant profession successfully (for example, someone who is deaf would not be able to hear a heartbeat through a stethoscope). For this reason applicants with disabilities are urged to communicate with the Faculty, via the University’s Disability Unit, to establish whether this would apply to them.
- The Faculty will consider the immediate family members of permanently appointed UCT staff members who are not South African citizens or permanent residents or eligible SADC applicants, and who have applied for permanent residency has not yet been approved at the time of registration – provided they are fully competitive.
- Applicants from non-SADC countries with an approved Occupational Therapy diploma may also be considered, provided that they have written the National Benchmark test and have obtained NBT cut-off scores that fall in the “Intermediate” or “Proficient” range’; have practised as occupational therapists for more than two years; and have participated in the O.T diploma training at institutions of higher learning in their respective countries for more than two years. A maximum of two such applicants may be admitted annually.
- School-leaving South African applicants who have undergone their schooling abroad in schooling systems where there is a national school leaving examination (i.e. A levels, IB or HIGCSE/IGCSE) will be judged on their school leaving results and NBT results (and, if they have also studied at tertiary level, their tertiary education results). South African applicants who have lived abroad and not written national school-leaving examinations would need to write national examinations of this or another country to be eligible for consideration.
Contact us
Undergraduate Admissions Office - Faculty of Health Sciences
Wernher & Beit Building
Anzio Road
Observatory
7925
Tel: 021 406 6328
021 406 6347
Email us
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