UNI IS CALLING
With exams long gone, now students wait on a desired tertiary offer
SOME Far North school leavers will be able to spend the Christmas holiday content in the knowledge they have been offered places in their preferred university courses after the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre extended first round offers yesterday.
Former St Augustine’s College student Jacob Keatley was thrilled to learn he had a place in a Bachelor of Engineering course at James Cook University’s Cairns campus.
He hoped to specialise in electrical engineering during his degree.
“I had CQU engineering down as a preference too,” he said.
“I find the subject interesting and I was good at physics and maths at school.”
She may still be in Brisbane after graduating from Clontarf Beach State High School in the city’s north, but Lauren Thirlwell will move north in a week to start a law and business degree at JCU in Cairns.
“I was really interested in legal studies and business management at school and I really want to help people,” she said.
St Andrew’s Catholic College alumni Paris Welch will go in the other direction, with plans to get a rental near Brisbane’s University of Queensland in order to study law and economics.
“I’m excited but nervous. I wasn’t expecting the offer until January 15. The original cut-off for the course was OP 2 but I got an OP 4 so I feel lucky,” she said.
STACC careers co-ordinator Renee Campbell said students from the Redlynch school had received early offers to Bond and Australian National universities and the University of the Sunshine Coast.
“They’ve done really well but to everyone else, hang in there because it’s only the first round,” she said. “There will be major round of offers in January, and subsequent offers after that because not everybody takes their first preference.”
Admissions and curriculum information manager Dan Beesley said “it is worth noting that any applicant with medicine, dentistry, vet, or physio as their highest preference will not be considered for an offer today as these courses are not offered for the first time until January 15.”