Undergraduate Applications and Offers,
February 2015
© Commonwealth of Australia
ISBN: 978-1-76028-154-0
With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and where otherwise noted all material presented in this document is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/) licence.
The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website (accessible using the links provided) as is the full legal code for the CC BY 3.0 AU licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/legalcode).
The document must be attributed as the Undergraduate Applications and Offers, February 2015 report.
Produced by the Department of Education and Training, 2015.
Department of Education and Training
GPO Box 9880
CANBERRA CITY ACT 2601
For questions regarding application data or for further information, please email .
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Highlights 4
3. Highest Preference Applications 7
4. Offers 9
5. Field of Education 12
6. Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) 14
7. Under-Represented Groups 16
8. University Group 19
9. Direct Applications 21
10. Data Qualifications 22
11. Glossary 24
1. Introduction
Purpose of the Report
This report looks at the third round data submission on applications and offers processed through Tertiary Admissions Centres (TACs) and the first round data submission on applications made directly to universities for the first semester of the 2015 academic year. It provides trends in the number of applications, offers and characteristics of applicants. As such, these trends are leading indicators of the response of universities to the demand for higher education in 2015.
Overview of the Data
Data in this report are derived from the University Applications and Offers Data Collection. The data refer to domestic undergraduate student applications and offers as of 27 February 2015. While over 99% of all first semester TAC applications are received by this date, applicants can make decisions on their offers until the close of the application process.
The report looks at domestic undergraduate highest preference applications and total offers processed by TACs and universities. More comprehensive applications and offers data will be available and analysed by the department between April 2015 and June 2015. Interim figures included in this report are subject to change following subsequent submissions of applications and offers data. A final report is scheduled for publication by the department in September 2015.
One particular issue has affected the reporting of 2015 applications data. It relates to the effect of the ‘half-year’ Year 12 cohort in Western Australia (WA). The ‘half-year’ cohort arose due to the Western Australian State Government changing the starting age for school children in 2003. The change was legislated by the WA School Education Act of 1999. Until 2003, children began Year1 at the beginning of the calendar year when they turned six. From 2003, children began Year 1 if they turned six between 1 July of the previous year and 30 June of the year they started school. This policy change was introduced as a one-off. That is, there was no staggered implementation across years, which meant that in 2003 only children born between 1 January 1997 and 30 June 1997 started school. This small cohort has been working its way through the school system reaching Year 12 in 2014. The Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC – the TAC in WA) estimates that it is more likely that the number of students with an ATAR will be around 60% of the size of a normal cohort of students. This has considerably impacted WA’s university application numbers for the 2015 academic year. Given that much of this report provides time series data and makes year on year comparisons, many figures and tables are reported with and without Western Australia data.
Applications and offers reports are published on the department’s website:
www.education.gov.au/higher-education-statistics.
Acknowledgements
The department would like to thank all officers of TACs and universities for submitting high quality applications and offers data for the 2015 academic year.
2. Highlights
Total Applications and Offers - TAC and Direct
· As of 27 February 2015, 314 198 applicants had applied for a university place, either through a TAC (excluding WA) or directly to a university (including WA). This is 1.0% above the number of applicants as of May 2014.
· There were 264 680 applicants who received an offer, either through a TAC (excluding WA) or directly to a university (including WA), 0.9% above the number of applicants who received offers as of May 2014.
TAC Applications and Offers
Highest Preference Applications
· As of 27 February 2015, there were 268 704 applications made through TACs. Excluding WA, there were 255221 applications. This is a decrease of 449 applications, or 0.2%, compared with the same time in 2014. This follows a decrease of 0.05% at the same point in time between 2013 and 2014.
· Nationally (excluding WA), Year 12 applications increased by 1.3% while non-Year 12 applications decreased by 1.9% in 2015.
Offers
· During the same period, there were 218 517 offers made. Excluding WA there were 207473 offers made, a decrease of 1.0% compared with the same time in 2014.
· Nationally (excluding WA), Year 12 offers increased by 0.6% in 2015. Victoria, Queensland and the South Australia(SA)/Northern Territory (NT) recorded increases in offers to Year 12 applicants.
· Offers to non-Year 12 applicants fell by 3.5% nationally and 3.0% nationally excluding WA.
· Applications from Year 12 students were more likely to receive an offer than applications from non-Year 12 students. As of 27 February 2015, the Year 12 offer rate (percentage of applicants who received an offer) was 83.7% compared with the non-Year 12 offer rate of 78.3%. Offer rates for both Year12 students and non-Year 12 students decreased in 2015, down from 84.4% and 79.2% respectively in 2014.
· Above-average Year 12 offer rates were recorded in Queensland (87.3%) and New South Wales (NSW)/the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) (85.5%) in 2015.
Field of Education
· Nationally (excluding WA), Health received the largest number of applications (73 766 or 28.9% of all applications).
· Health also recorded the largest increase in applications (7.5%). This was followed by Information Technology (3.3%) and Management and Commerce (2.2%).
· Nationally (excluding WA), Health received the largest number of offers (48 643 or 23.4% of total offers).
· Health also recorded the largest increase in offers (7.4%). This was followed by Information Technology (4.9%).
· Applications for Natural and Physical Sciences and Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies are most likely to receive an offer (offer rates of 103.1% and 92.8% respectively).
Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR)
· In 2015, 68.5% of all offers made to Year 12 applicants were for those with an ATAR above 70. Offers to Year 12 applicants who achieved an ATAR above 90 accounted for 26.5% of all offers.
· The share of Year 12 offers for applicants with a low ATAR score (50 or less) increased from 2.1% in 2011 to 5.8% in 2015. Offers for applicants with low ATAR scores (50 or less) accounted for 7 071 out of 122 962 Year 12 TAC offers in 2015.
· Over the past five years, the likelihood of an applicant with a low ATAR score (50 or less) receiving an offer has increased from 18.2% to 38.3%. By comparison, over the same period, the likelihood of an applicant with a high ATAR score (above 90) receiving an offer has remained steady (90.5% to 89.9%).
Socioeconomic Status (SES)
· Applicants from a low SES background (excluding WA) have shown the largest increase (0.5%) compared with those from a medium SES background (0.2%) and a high SES background (-1.0%).
· Offers to applicants from a low SES background (excluding WA) have also shown the smallest decrease (-0.2%) compared with offers to applicants from a medium SES background (-0.7%) and a high SES background (-1.9%).
· However, applicants from a low SES background (excluding WA) were less likely to receive an offer. Their offer rate was 79.9% compared with 81.2% for applicants from a medium SES background and 82.8% for applicants from a high SES background in 2015.
Regional
· Offers to metropolitan residents (excluding WA) decreased by 0.7% with offers to non-metropolitan residents decreasing by 1.7% in 2015.
· Applications from non-metropolitan areas were more likely to receive an offer compared with applicants from metropolitan areas, (84.5% and 80.5% respectively – excluding WA).
Indigenous Status
· As of 27 February 2015, around three quarters, 74.4%, of Indigenous applicants (excluding WA) had attracted an offer, compared with 81.4% for non-Indigenous applicants.
University Group
· Applications to the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) universities (excluding Murdoch University) recorded an increase of 10.2% in 2015. Applications decreased among the other university groups with applications to the Group of Eight (Go8) (excluding The University of Western Australia), Regional Universities Network (RUN) and Australian Technology Network (ATN) (excluding Curtin University of Technology) decreasing by 3.4%, 2.1% and 0.1% respectively.
· The IRU universities (excluding Murdoch University) recorded the largest increase in offers (1.3%) in 2015, followed by ATN (excluding Curtin University of Technology) (1.1%).
· Applications to Go8 universities (excluding The University of Western Australia) and ATN universities (excluding Curtin University of Technology) were less likely to receive an offer in 2015 (offer rates of 68.9% and 74.7% respectively), reflecting the higher entry requirements at these universities.
Direct Applications and offers[1]
· As of 27 February 2015, there were 95819 direct applications made to universities, an increase of 6.8% on the number of direct applications in 2014.
· There were 78227 direct offers made by universities as of 27 February 2015, an increase of 9.1% on the number of direct offers made in 2014.
3. Highest Preference Applications
Overall trends
· As of 27 February 2015, there were 268 704 applications made through TACs. Excluding WA, there were 255 221 applications, a decrease of 449 applications, or 0.2%, compared with the same time in 2014. This follows a decrease of 0.05% between 2013 and 2014 (including WA).
Table 1: Highest preference applications by state and territory, February 2014 and
February 2015
NSW/ACT / 88,450 / 86,704 / -2.0% /
Vic. / 72,239 / 71,618 / -0.9% /
Qld / 55,044 / 55,124 / 0.1% /
WA / 18,073 / 13,483 / -25.4% /
SA/NT / 28,206 / 29,397 / 4.2% /
Tas. / 11,731 / 12,378 / 5.5% /
Australia / 273,743 / 268,704 / -1.8% /
Australia (excluding WA) / 255,670 / 255,221 / -0.2% /
Year 12 status
· Nationally, Year 12 applications decreased by 1.3% in 2015, following an increase of 0.8% in 2014. Excluding WA, Year 12 applications increased by 1.3%.
· All states and territories recorded increases in Year 12 applications, except for
WA (-30.5%) and Tasmania (-13.2%) which recorded decreases in Year 12 applications.
· Non-Year 12 applications decreased by 2.5% in 2015, following a decrease of 1.1% in 2014.
· This is in line with a broader trend in recent years that has seen non-Year 12 applicants less likely to apply for admission through TACs and more likely to apply directly to universities - see Section 9.
· States and territories that recorded declining non-Year 12 applications in 2015 were WA (-14.5%), NSW/ACT (-6.0%), Victoria (-5.6%) and Queensland (-2.1%).
Table 2: Highest preference applications by Year 12 status, by state and territory, February 2014 and February 2015
State/Territory / Year 12 / Non-Year 12 /2014 / 2015 / % Change / 2014 / 2015 / % Change /
NSW/ACT / 49,835 / 50,402 / 1.1% / 38,615 / 36,302 / -6.0% /
Vic. / 45,427 / 46,316 / 2.0% / 26,812 / 25,302 / -5.6% /
Qld / 28,166 / 28,803 / 2.3% / 26,878 / 26,321 / -2.1% /
WA / 12,310 / 8,558 / -30.5% / 5,763 / 4,925 / -14.5% /
SA/NT / 13,004 / 13,153 / 1.1% / 15,202 / 16,244 / 6.9% /
Tas. / 3,555 / 3,085 / -13.2% / 8,176 / 9,293 / 13.7% /
Australia / 152,297 / 150,317 / -1.3% / 121,446 / 118,387 / -2.5% /
Australia (excluding WA) / 139,987 / 141,759 / 1.3% / 115,683 / 113,462 / -1.9% /
· Nationally, Year 12 applications represent 55.9% of total applications, an increase of 0.3percentage points compared with 2014. Excluding WA, Year 12 applications represent 55.5% of total applications, an increase of 0.8 percentage points.
· Victoria recorded the highest proportion of Year 12 applications (64.7%), an increase of 1.8 percentage points compared with 2014. WA recorded the next highest proportion (63.5%), decreasing by 4.6 percentage points (a decrease attributable to WA’s ‘half year’ Year 12 cohort effect).
Table 3: Proportion of Year 12 highest preference applications by state and territory, February 2014 and February 2015
State/Territory / 2014 / 2015 / Change (p.p) /NSW/ACT / 56.3% / 58.1% / 1.8 /
Vic. / 62.9% / 64.7% / 1.8 /
Qld / 51.2% / 52.3% / 1.1 /
WA / 68.1% / 63.5% / -4.6 /
SA/NT / 46.1% / 44.7% / -1.4 /
Tas. / 30.3% / 24.9% / -5.4 /
Australia / 55.6% / 55.9% / 0.3 /
Australia (excluding WA) / 54.8% / 55.5% / 0.8 /
4. Offers
Overall trends
· As of 27 February 2015, there were 218 517 offers made, a decrease of 6146 (-2.7%) compared with the same time in 2014. This follows an increase of 0.7% between 2013 and 2014. Excluding WA, offers decreased by 1.0% in 2015.
· The largest growth was recorded in Tasmania (5.5%), followed by SA/NT (3.0%).
· More than four-fifths of applications (81.3%) attracted an offer in 2015, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points over 2014. This follows an increase of 0.6 percentage points between 2013 and 2014.
Table 4: Offers and offer rates by state and territory, February 2014 and February 2015
State/Territory / Offers / Offer rates /2014 / 2015 / % Change / 2014 / 2015 / Change (p.p) /
NSW/ACT / 74,170 / 72,727 / -1.9% / 83.9% / 83.9% / 0.0 /
Vic. / 58,369 / 56,874 / -2.6% / 80.8% / 79.4% / -1.4 /
Qld / 46,530 / 46,243 / -0.6% / 84.5% / 83.9% / -0.6 /
WA / 15,120 / 11,044 / -27.0% / 83.7% / 81.9% / -1.8 /
SA/NT / 21,011 / 21,641 / 3.0% / 74.5% / 73.6% / -0.9 /
Tas. / 9,463 / 9,988 / 5.5% / 80.7% / 80.7% / 0.0 /
Australia / 224,663 / 218,517 / -2.7% / 82.1% / 81.3% / -0.7 /
Australia (excluding WA) / 209,543 / 207,473 / -1.0% / 82.0% / 81.3% / -0.7 /
Year 12 status
· Nationally, offers to Year 12 applicants decreased by 2.1% in 2015. This follows an increase of 1.3% in 2014. Excluding WA, offers to Year 12 applicants increased by 0.6% in 2015.