Some of the biggest decreases have been the ATARs required to study nursing at Australian Catholic University and Western Sydney University (down at least 20 points), while the grade required for a bachelor’s degree in nursing at UTS is 75, compared to 86, 95 last year. At the University of Wollongong, the required ATAR for nursing is 65.1, instead of 70.7.
A snapshot of data from December shows that the most sought-after courses are health, arts and business administration, with the University of NSW’s medical studies/doctorate in medicine being the most popular first choice, followed by the university’s medical sciences bachelor’s degree. University of Newcastle science and doctor of medicine. The most popular courses at Sydney University are the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Commerce.
Year 12 student Joanna Carey said she was surprised to get an ATAR of 99.2 last week when the results were announced.
“I started thinking a bit more about architecture. But I stand by my decision to consider law and commerce at the University of Sydney as my first choice,” said Carey.
Her backup plan is to move to Australian National University in Canberra to study law and commerce if she doesn’t get to Sydney. Anyway, she plans to live on campus when she starts the course.
“It means you just immerse yourself in the university experience,” she said.
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This year, 15,746 students received early offers through UAC and thousands of offers were made directly from universities to students, including 11,400 from UTS and 11,270 early offers from Western Sydney University.
“Although numerous early offers have been made, these are the first offerings based on ATAR,” Paino said. “That’s important because some of the most in-demand courses rely on ATAR, and even students who already have offers may have held on to this round.”
Universities have been making early offers to students for about a decade, but numbers skyrocketed during the pandemic as universities evaded ATAR results, and student applications through UAC increased quadrupled since 2014.
The flurry of offers – and concerns that they are undermining the HSC – led to calls for new rules governing how early offers were made. University bosses will review guidelines starting next year to determine how early offers are made to 12th year students.
Students have until midnight January 5 to change preferences for the next round of offerings in January.
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