By Craig Butt and Nicole Precel
The wait is over for tens of thousands of Victorian school-leavers, as 47,170 offers of places in university, TAFE and private college courses for 2026 land in inboxes on Tuesday afternoon.
You can search your name in the table below to see any first-round Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) course offers. This is not an exhaustive list of all first-round offers, as some students declined to have this information published.
There are 1801 courses offered through the VTAC application at 35 tertiary institutions in Victoria. Another 225 courses at 12 institutions are available through VTAC CourseSearch.
For VCE graduates who missed out on a first-round offer on Tuesday, VTAC will release its second round of offers on January 13. A handful of courses, including medicine at Monash University, don’t make offers until the January round.
There are also 906 courses that don’t require an ATAR, including 591 without prerequisites, which provides plenty of pathways for students without an ATAR.
The hardest courses to get into this year based on ranking are biomedicine/dental surgery and science/dental surgery at the University of Melbourne in Parkville, with an ATAR requirement of 99.85.
The minimum selection rank is a student’s ATAR plus any additional adjustments, such as special consideration, they have been awarded.
Course selection ranks usually hold steady from year to year but can shift based on popularity.
Science at the University of Melbourne was a tougher to get into this year, with a minimum selection rank of 91, up from 89 last year. Commerce held steady at the University of Melbourne at 92, while 85 is the score needed to get into arts at the University of Melbourne, down two points from 2024.
The ranking is for first-round offers. Most courses lower their requirements for second-round offers.
There are 46 courses offered that require an ATAR of between 95 and 99.95, while there are 173 courses that require a minimum selection rank of 60 to 64.95.
Students can decide whether to accept, defer or reject offers until 8pm on Tuesday by logging into their VTAC portal.
For Auburn High School student Mai Lilly Roberts, an early offer to study fashion marketing at the Australian College of the Arts (Collarts) has her feeling at ease.
What happens now
If you receive an offer notification from VTAC, you will receive a separate email from the university, TAFE institute or independent tertiary college with instructions on how to accept the offer and enrol for the course.
Accept the offer you have received before the deadline in the enrolment instructions.
If you plan to take a gap year, check with the institution to make sure you can defer your course offer.
Ensure your preferences are still what you want and if you need to, make adjustments to your preferences by 8pm on Tuesday (December 23).
If you are hoping for a higher preference offer, check your VTAC account from 2pm on January 13.
If you didn’t receive an offer, check your preferences and ensure you’ve met all requirements.
A limited number of courses do not make December offers.
If you are unsure, reach out to the institution offering the course to confirm.
If your course did not participate in the December round, don’t remove it from your list of preferences.
Consider adding extra courses to your preferences list to increase your chance of getting an offer in the next round.
Contact institutions offering the courses you are interested in to see if they can recommend any pathway courses which can help you reach your goals.
The 17-year-old from Camberwell said she had loved fashion since before she could speak and felt the small campuses and one-on-one nature of the course suited her best.
“When I was little, I was obsessed with buying clothes and putting them in my room and styling them,” she said.
Ben Kaldas (left) wants to study music, Mai Lilly Roberts wants to study fashion marketing and Em Eaton is aiming for photography at the Australian College of the Arts.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Mernda’s Ben Kaldas, 18, who received a conditional offer from the Australian College of the Arts to study music performance, said he never truly belonged in high school.
He was feeling slightly nervous about receiving a formal offer on Tuesday.
The Plenty Valley Christian College graduate said when he heard Beyonce’s father had done a master class at the college, he knew it was going to be the place for him.
Ben Kaldas is looking forward to study music performance at Collarts. Credit: Wayne Taylor
“I came from a very conservative school and so, you know, kids like me are very … not seen there. I’ve always stood out, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think it was very nice to feel the warmth of a crowd when I went into Collarts,” he said.
Kaldas who mainly sings pop but also jazz and R&B, said he auditioned on his birthday for the arts college, which has campuses in Fitzroy and Collingwood.
“It was very special. I think music is super uniting. I can’t wait to build connection and belong,” he said.
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