Is now your time?
By the QTAC Marketing Team
Have you been thinking about doing some further study, but it’s been a while since you left school?
Applicants who are not currently in year 12 generally make up over half the QTAC applicants each year, so don’t worry that you’ll be the oldest in a class of young school leavers! Choosing to study as a mature age student has a number of advantages.
If you are worried about the time-commitment or getting to classes, the flexibility of online learning and part-time course options offered by institutions makes tertiary study very accessible to most people.
QTAC’s non-year 12 applicants come from many different backgrounds. They include students who have taken a gap year after school and now know what they want to study, people who began working straight from school but after a few years are now ready to take the plunge into tertiary study, and professionals with existing qualifications who are looking at post-graduate study to progress their careers. Then, there are those who simply want to fulfil their ambition to go to university and to be the first in their family to do so.
So, where do you start with your QTAC application?
Everything you need to know about applying to QTAC can be found on our website.
What do you want to study?
If you are applying through QTAC, our Course Search tool can help you navigate courses offered by 17 higher education providers in Queensland and Northern New South Wales. You can find out more about individual courses on the institution websites or talk to the university or TAFE student advisors.
How can you get into the course you want?
There is in-depth information about Admission Criteria and different aspects of eligibility on the QTAC website, and our QTAC advisors can talk you through the process.
If you have been working for some time you may already have professional, defence or emergency services qualifications that could give you a selection rank to help with your application.
Don’t quite have what you need yet to get into the course you want?
If you don’t meet the entry requirements for the course, you might want to look at an Upgrading Pathway. Upgrading means doing something towards getting a new, and hopefully better selection rank to be able to apply for courses that are harder to get into. Other pathways include enabling programs and bridging courses, where you can study a certain subject to meet course subject prerequisites.
To demonstrate your capability of undertaking future tertiary study for a course you can sit the Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT), a two-hour aptitude test that may count towards your selection rank. Each institution has its own rules about using the STAT towards course entry, so make sure you check institution specific rules about the STAT before applying.