Undergraduate admissions - UQ defies national trend

The University of Queensland has defied a downward national trend of declining student demand and recorded a significant increase in overall applications - but especially in engineering and science.

Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay said that overall applications for 1998 entry to the University of Queensland of 12609 were up 5 percent on last year's total, contrasting with an overall decline of 3.1 percent nationally to 218,896.

UQ also attracted Queensland's highest number of first preference applicants.

Professor Hay said national figures released by the AVCC in late January showed a steady decline over the past three years in applications to state admission centres for entry to higher education. The President of the AVCC, Professor John Niland, had described the trend, particularly away from the sciences, as "a deeply worrying one".

Professor Hay said the picture for the University of Queensland was much more positive than for the national situation. UQ's 5 percent overall increase on last year's demand had been reflected in higher cut-offs for a number of the major courses.

The University made 8,777 offers in the major offer round in January and a further 807 offers in the top up round in the first week of February, almost exactly matching the number of offers made last year.

Professor Hay said the most noticeable improvement in demand was in applications for entry to Engineering and Science, with the Engineering cut-off increasing from OP 8 (Rank 86) to OP 6 (Rank 91) and the Science cut-off increasing from OP 10 (Rank 81) to OP 8 (Rank 86). This follows a similar increase in demand and cut-offs last year.

First preference applications for entry to Engineering rose by 10 percent this year. Given the concern in other states about falling demand for entry to engineering and science courses, these increases in demand were particularly pleasing, Professor Hay said.

"It is important to note that these are not boutique courses with small quotas where a slight increase in numbers makes a difference, but large single quotas of 1000 for science and 500 for engineering", Professor Hay said.

"Given the size of these quotas, these changes represent substantial improvements in demand", he said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 7 February that the cut-off for entry to a basic science course at UNSW was a NSW TER of 60 and at Sydney 61.1. According to the QTAC schedule of equivalences for interstate applicants, the requirement for entry to the Bachelor of Science at the University of Queensland this year was equivalent to a NSW TER of 77.25.

Further information: Professor John Hay (07) 3365 1300