By Bridie Smith
Imagine starting university with a couple of subject units under your belt, an established network of friends and a solid grasp of how to navigate campus life on and offline.
Add to that the fact that the university subjects you studied were fully subsidised and it sounds almost too good to be true.
Mia Chircop studied human biosciences at La Trobe University last year while completing her VCE at Copperfield College.Credit: Penny Stephens
When 18-year-old Mia Chircop arrives at La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus for the start of the academic year in March, she will already have a first-year subject ticked off.
Chircop studied human biosciences at La Trobe last year while completing her VCE at Copperfield College, in Delahey in Melbourne’s north-west, where she was school captain.
La Trobe University covered the $12,000 cost of her tertiary studies, provided a $140 textbook and gave her an early university offer in September to its physiotherapy course, which Chircop says took the pressure off when sitting her VCE exams.
“It changed pretty much my whole year,” she says.
Copperfield’s VCE co-ordinator suggested Chircop sign up for a university subject when she was in year 11, and with an eye on a bachelor of physiotherapy, she elected to do human biosciences.
She says the support she received from her university professors was incredible. They emailed weekly with feedback and allowed her to nominate a different date to sit her exams if there was a clash with a school exam.
Overseen by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, universities apply and need to be accredited to be part of the Higher Education Studies Program.
With universities keen to lock in high-achieving school graduates, students’ tertiary subjects count towards their university studies as long as they continue at the university.
The university subjects also contribute to students’ tertiary admission score, or ATAR. After a student’s first four subjects are counted, their university study can give them an increment to their score when counted as a fifth or sixth subject.
For Chircop, that meant a 10 per cent increment to her ATAR score of 85.
Emmaline Bexley, who manages La Trobe’s Aspire Achieve Plus program, says she loves having secondary school students at university.
“They’re awesome,” she says. “You have to be pretty engaged and interested in study to include university in your VCE, so they’re usually really high-achieving, interested students.”
Universities such as La Trobe offer high-achieving school students the chance to study some subjects while completing their VCE.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Bexley says that in 2023, a VCE student studying law won the prize for the highest-graded first-year essay.
La Trobe will offer five subjects this year, and VCE students will be able to choose online or face-to-face learning. Law, health science and human biosciences are the most in demand subjects.
Online teaching, which is the most popular option, is scheduled for after 4pm to fit in with school hours, while secondary school students have all the benefits of tertiary students, including a student card and access to the library and wellness centre.
“That’s the other valuable bit,” Bexley says. “They get the experience a year before everybody else, so by the start of university they know how everything works.”
Chircop was one of a dozen students from Copperfield College to complete a university subject last year, thanks to the Centre for Higher Education Studies, a two-year-old state government program to help high-achieving state school students take on tertiary studies.
“There are so many high-achieving kids from my little public school, and it’s so cool,” Chircop says.
Joel Cheok, 18, took a maths extension subject at the University of Melbourne last year while completing his VCE at Camberwell Grammar.
He plans to study science at the University of Melbourne but has not ruled out medicine at Monash University.
Joel Cheok studied maths extension at the University of Melbourne last year while doing his VCE at Camberwell Grammar.Credit: Jason South
Wherever he ends up, he says having university exam experience was one of the things he appreciated most.
“Going to your first exam is very scary, but now I’ve sat in the hall and know what the exam conditions are like, so that helps a lot,” he says.
Knowing how to submit assignments and check timetabling using the student portal will help him hit the ground running, he says.
Cheok also has a network of friends from different schools whom he met through the extension program, and has remained in contact with them over the summer break.
The University of Melbourne’s extension program is free to join and offers 18 subjects including physics, philosophy, art history and Japanese.
Deakin University has units in 17 subjects on offer across its four campuses this year as part of its accelerate program.
High-achieving year 12 students can complete two first-year university units, paid for by the university.
Among the popular choices are those not taught in VCE, such as criminology, and disability, diversity and inclusion.
“[Students] benefit from gaining a glimpse into university life while easing their transition to tertiary studies and boosting their ATAR,” a Deakin spokesperson said.
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