Degrees of difficulty: The 10 toughest university courses to get into
By Noel Towell
The most difficult university courses in Victoria to get into based on selection rank have been revealed, and the top three include dentistry.
The University of Melbourne has dominated the top rankings of hard-to-reach degrees this year: seven of its courses are among the 10 with the highest selection-rank requirements.
Students lucky enough to have cracked this year’s toughest-to-get-into course on the list will be heading to La Trobe University’s Bendigo campus to study dental science (honours), which required a minimum selection rank of 99.9.
The minimum selection rank is a student’s ATAR plus any additional adjustments, such as special consideration, that they have been awarded.
Courses for biomedicine/dental surgery and science/dental surgery at the University of Melbourne, both requiring a minimum selection rank of 99.85, rounded out the top three toughest-to-crack courses.
The University of Melbourne’s consistently popular arts/law, commerce/law and science/law courses were next on the list, all requiring a minimum selection rank of 99.80.
Gisele Hennequin was happy with her first-round offer.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Two more Melbourne Uni courses, biomedicine/optometry and science/optometry, were next in line with cut-off scores of 99, and two more La Trobe degrees, oral health science at Bendigo and commerce/science at the Bundoora campus, rounded out the top 10 with cut-off scores of 98.75 and 98.7 respectively.
The minimum selection score listing does not include medical degrees, which have additional non-ATAR entry requirements.
McKinnon Secondary College graduate Gisele Hennequin, who achieved an ATAR score of 98, made it comfortably into her first-choice course, biomedicine at the University of Melbourne, with its cut-off of 91.
But the 18-year-old said it still felt good when official confirmation of her place came in the early hours of Monday.
“I wasn’t too nervous but it’s nice to have it official,” she said. “It’s definitely good to have it in writing, and now I’m excited to enroll and everything.”
First-round offers were also well received among Hennequin’s friends.
“I think everyone is pretty much getting the offers that they wanted,” she said. “There’s a few of my friends who were really close in terms of their ATARs but then they ended up actually getting their course.”
Kate Zhang from Methodist Ladies’ College, with her ATAR in the high 90s, easily got into her first preference of commerce at the University of Melbourne, which had a cut-off this year of 92.
But she is not going to Parkville next year, opting instead to take up an overseas university offer to study either social analysis or economics.
“I’m probably going to defer the offer,” she said.
Zhang’s place at Melbourne can now be made available to another student, most likely in January’s second round of offers.
“I’ve got friends who really want to do commerce, and they were a bit off [the cut-off score] and I feel like I just want to give it to people who actually needed it.
“I’m proud of myself that I got the offer, but at the same time, since I’ve made up my mind now, it would be good for people who are really aiming for that [course] to have that option in the second round,” she said.
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