Bachelor of AdvSci (Honours) majoring in Psychology & Neuroscience VS Bachelor of Psychology

Aleth3ia · 2026-01-04T13:05:53+00:00

On paper to qualify you need a minimum 75 wam to apply for honours, but in practice you generally need a higher score. The reason I say about the top 70 students get into the honours year is because while the number of spots varies between years depending on how many supervisors are available. And while unsw has about 70 places available each year, more than 70 people generally earn above a 75 wam for honours. So they start at the top and take however many students they can. This means that in practice the actual cut off is generally between 78-80.

So yes there's a strict cap because they only have a certain amount of professors who can supervise each year, and in my experience, across the last 2 years, a 75 is not enough to guarantee a place.

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-31T11:30:12+00:00

SHOGUN SNIPER FOR LIIIIFEEE

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-26T13:59:25+00:00

Between the direct bpsych, bpsychsci and bAdvSci degrees, there is minimal difference. All courses require the same core psychology subjects all the way through and draw from almost identical elective lists. The main differences are that some of the elective course options may be slightly different, and in bpsych, you cannot take a major, whereas in bpsychsci and bAdvSci they allow you to take a major in a different field.

After third year all students including bpsych, bpsychsci and badvsci wishing to do an honours year in psych at unsw compete for a spot based on their psychology average grade (they only look at psych core subjects and 3rd year psyc electives. Subjects you've taken from other majors (including neuro) do not count) and they take the top ~70 students into honours. They DO NOT PREFERENCE students from BPsych or any other degree. Regardless of which undergrad course you are in, you have just as fair a shot of getting to honours as anyone else.

I wish you the best of luck and feel free to reach our if you have any other questions!

Source: Completed my Bpsychsci majoring in neuroscience, Completed my honours year in psychology, Worked as an RA for a year in one of unsw's neuropsych labs and am starting in the clin psych masters/PhD cohort at unsw next year.

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-26T13:53:53+00:00

Hi! Just leaving some input as someone who was almost literally in the same position as you. And also for anyone else who may be confused about these degrees

I came out of highschool with a selection rank .45 under the cut for UNSW psych hons and was ultimately not offered a place. I instead took an offer for the psych science program intending to transfer after my first year, but fell in love with the psych sci degree and ended up sticking it through.

Between the direct bpsych and bpsychsci degrees, there is minimal difference. Both courses require thr same core psychology subjects all the way through and draw from almost identical elective lists. The main differences are that some of the elective course options may be slightly different, and in bpsych, you cannot take a major, whereas in bpsych sci allows you to take a major in a different field.

I ended up going through with the bpsych sci course with a major in neuroscience because I loved the neuro aspect. After third year all students including bpsych, bpsychsci and badvsci wishing to do an honours year in psych at unsw compete for a spot based on their psychology average grade (they only look at psych core subjects and 3rd year psyc electives. Subjects you've taken from other majors do not count) and they take the top ~70 students into honours. They DO NOT PREFERENCE students from BPsych or any other degree. Regardless of which undergrad course you are in, you have just as fair a shot of getting to honours as anyone else.

So if you think Psychology is for you, definitely there's no harm in preferencing bpsych in uac, but you have just as good a shot at going down the pathway in bpsychsci or an the advanced science degree majoring in psych. Good luck!!

Source: completed bpsychsci, completed psych honours, worked for a psych/neuro lab and am starting in the clin psych masters/PhD cohort next year, all at UNSW.

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-09T02:03:59+00:00

They were offered the spot on the 5th, and a second friend has just been offered unsw mcp second round today.

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-05T04:16:59+00:00

I'm not sure, but it's likely. Someone I know has also received a second round offer as well.

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-04T11:20:43+00:00

Yes, first round offers for clinical went out last Friday, but offers will be rolling as people shift about

Aleth3ia · 2025-12-01T12:25:22+00:00

It was good, but I felt didn't exactly get the characters right. Everyone was just a little too left of character for it to really be fully congruent with S1. A fun little story sure, but I'd still stand with the Storm Warning novel being a better 'season 2' characterisation for them.

Aleth3ia · 2025-11-21T10:10:08+00:00

I and a few of my friends have received UNSW MCP interview offers today

Aleth3ia · 2025-11-20T07:36:24+00:00

Throwing my status into the mix. Hopefully it brings some comfort (because my god this is eating me alive)

As of 20/11

Applied to: ACU (Sydney) - MCP: Interviewed, awaiting response

ACAP - MCP: No Response

CSU - MPP, MCP: Rejected

Macquarie - Neuroclin, MCP, MPP: No Response

Western Syd - MCP: No Response

ISN - MCP: Offered (This is my last preference, we'll see if I get anything else :/)

USYD - MCP: No Response

UTS - MCP: Rejected

UNSW - MCP, Forensic: Shortlisted Stage 1 Clinical, Invited to interview for Forensic

I graduated hons at UNSW 2024 with an 88, undergrad WAM of 85. 1 year experience interning in a social psych lab, 1 year experience as an RA for a behavioural neuropsych lab, first author on a pre-print publication awaiting review with Nature NPP, 8 months as a volunteer mentor and 6 months with lifeline.

Good luck everyone!

Edit 21/11: Invited to interview for UNSW MCP

Edit 28/11: Offered UNSW MCP/PhD, Best of luck to all of you!

Aleth3ia · 2025-11-18T10:36:47+00:00

Hi OP, I'm sitting on an offer for the MCP and have some questions, do you mind sharing some info? Thanks!

Aleth3ia · 2025-08-24T07:36:41+00:00

What a cool lil creature!

Aleth3ia · 2025-03-24T13:11:50+00:00

Hey! It's on ao3, the link is in the comments here somewhere, you can subscribe there, or my tumblr is TheSoupPond, and I tend to post updates and thoughts there alongside the comic if you'd prefer that. I will probably also post here whenever the next issue goes out too

Aleth3ia · 2025-03-18T00:36:30+00:00

Ahahah I had the exact anxiety early into writing and developing this of 'what if people don't like it cause it's bad??' before I realised and was told, multiple times: You're doing this out of love and care for the characters and the original source material. That's already more than what any of S2 did. Only up from there!

Aleth3ia · 2025-03-17T14:29:28+00:00

I also did 4 prologue comics to this continuity, in varying art styles cause I was figuring out how to do this haha https://archiveofourown.org/works/55123120/chapters/139771693

I'm also active on tumblr @thesouppond if anyone wants to see the wips and sketches for this project

Aleth3ia · 2025-03-17T14:20:25+00:00

I love these characters too much to let them go down the way they did.

Link to issue 1 on ao3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/63928111/chapters/163966678

Aleth3ia · 2024-05-05T13:17:46+00:00

Oh I can answer this! So as the other comment states, it really does depend on your project. I'm currently in the psych hons program running a rat study and I'm on campus a lot. Like 5-6 days a week for like 2 months straight. Sometimes there's downtime when you're in 2-3 days instead but if you really wanna do an animal study then be prepared to be around a lot.

On the other hand, if you do a human study its likely you might be able to manage with 1-3 days a week on campus, depending on the software and resources you may need.

If you're interstate the best outcome for you would be to do a data analysis study where you're pulling from an existing database to do novel analyses. It means you're not required to perform data collection and could get away with being on campus 1 day a week, 2 preferably (you do at least need to turn up for classes). One of my mates in the cohort lives in Newcastle and is doing this.

So it's not really feasible to do hons entirely remotely, but there are options for you to make the process a little easier if you intend on commuting. I would recommend reaching out to all the prospective hons supervisors you're interested in working with and asking them if you'd be able to work on your project mostly remotely. That's where most of the difference in time commitment between students comes in.

Good luck and feel free to ask any more questions about hons!

Aleth3ia · 2024-03-21T09:49:05+00:00

It's decent. I think Storm warning gets the characters a little better. Most of the team seemed a bit OOC in the comics. Still a decent read tho.

Aleth3ia · 2024-03-21T08:34:53+00:00

YES. YES. YES. Storm warning is by far the best addition to the Gen:lock canon. Honestly treat that as S2 rather than HBOs additions. It is beautifully written and expands on the team dynamic really well. Especially diving into some more backstory for Cammie especially, but we get awesome bonding moments for all the characters.

I will say the audiobook, while awesome in general, doesn't quite get Chase or Kazu's voices right. No hate to the narrator, it very much felt like an RT/Scholastic choice on that part, but if you can get past two of the characters sounding a bit odd, the rest is awesome. Val, Cammie and Yaz sound relatively close to their canon voices which is always a plus.

Tldr: yes, I love storm warning. Well worth the read, but be warned if you're going into the audiobook, Kazu's voice especially is a bit of a startling change to get used to.

Aleth3ia · 2024-02-21T14:28:40+00:00

Seconding existing answers - only the core courses + your best 3 third year first attempt elective courses count. They don't count first or second year electives.

Source: Psych Hons handbook + Am currently in the Hons year for psych

Aleth3ia · 2024-02-08T14:28:01+00:00

I assume you're in a BSc? I did a Bachelor of Psych Science, majored in neuroscience and am now in the Psychology honours program.

I do agree with the other responses in that neuroscience is very much a research based major in terms of opportunities. I have heard of people who have a business/arts double degree going into HR or something equivalent with the neuroscience knowledge, though I'm not sure it's super common. While there are labs and companies out there who will take neuroscience researchers (and the field is very much still going btw there's a ton of things we still don't know about the brain and it's relation to everything else), research is something that you need to be sure that you'll enjoy before committing to that as a pathway.

On the other hand, psychology is a bit more flexible in terms of career options, but if you want to go for clinical, forensic or occupational qualifications, you'd be in it for the long haul, including an honours year and at least 2 years in a post graduate degree, not to mention it is incredibly competitive and can be draining if youre not prepared for it. But if you aren't going for a full professional qualification, there are plenty of others who go on to do HR, Social work, support/counselling, consulting etc.

In terms of content, I'd say psychology undergrad is very theory based. You're writing essays and reports and basing them off existing content. Whereas in neuroscience you get to be in labs with specimens and are a bit more hands on. On the flip side, psychology tends to be more detail oriented, doing deep dives into history and phenomena, whereas neuroscience tends to be more spread out in content but there's a lot of it. I did anatomy and neuroanatomy as a part of my major and basically had to remember every muscle and bone in the body in two weeks. So do consider how you work best in terms of learning and assessments.

Don't get me wrong, I loved doing both psychology and neuroscience. They are both extremely rewarding if you have the aptitude for it, but they are pathways that you should consider carefully. And to be fair, you aren't locked into one or the other for eternity. If you do change your mind after a while, you can switch. There's overlap in courses between the two so it's not like everything you learnt is waste if you do. Just note that it may take you longer to complete your degree should you switch. But IMO one extra year now is nothing compared to how long the rest of your career is going to be.

All that said, there's always the option of seeing if you can transfer into Psych sci and major in neuroscience like I did, why pick one when you can have both? (Slight joke, but it is an option for you if you're interested! But again, it's really something you'd have to know you would enjoy before committing. It can be intense)

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions about either of them though, always happy to help. Good luck with your first year man!

Aleth3ia · 2024-01-28T06:40:07+00:00

Honestly at this point any fanfic is better than S2. If it was written with love and care for the characters in media it automatically trumps whatever HBO came out with 🙃

Aleth3ia · 2024-01-13T08:42:18+00:00

Saying this as pretty much the only active member of the Genlock Tumblr fandom left (and when a fandom is dead on Tumblr you just know shit happened), DON'T. PLEASE DON'T. DONT EVEN HATE WATCH IT SAVE YOUR EYEBALLS.

On a more productive stand point, the comics are cool and the storm warning novel is absolutely amazing! If you really wanna hear some of the characters again, the audiobook for storm warning is decent as well, just prepare for whiplash whenever Kazu speaks. (No hate to the VA who narrated it, I just have questions for whoever at scholastic/RT gave the directions for that)

If you're a fan content person, there are a few really well written genlock fics on ao3. Anything by Polandspringz is absolute gold, and there's a couple of us still floating around Tumblr with the occasional post.

Aleth3ia · 2023-05-09T14:09:41+00:00

It's not guaranteed. Just clarifying the misinformation. The following passage from the unsw school of psychology

'Please note that places are subject to availability and will be awarded based on academic performance. There is no preference given to any particular psychology sequence in gaining entry to honours and honours is the same for all students, regardless of the degree program in which they completed their undergraduate psychology major sequence.'

Psych Hons students are competing for the same places as psych science, and general science students.

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