Already stressed students made to wait hours for QTAC uni offers after four-day delay

The delays exceeded seven hours for some students, and it got to the point where individual universities took over and sent offers to students directly, bypassing the backlogged QTAC system.

Queensland universities had to send offers direct to students after the state’s largest annual tertiary offer release bungled for the second time in a week.

Prospective students on Monday waited more than seven hours for offers and individual universities took over and sent offers to students directly, bypassing the backlogged Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre.

The QTAC board, made up of representatives from various Queensland universities, issued a statement on Monday night promising a full review into what went wrong.

The January offer release was due to take place last Thursday, until QTAC sent out emails late on Wednesday advising they were delaying until 10am on Monday.

QTAC chief executive Dr John Griffiths issued an initial apology on Wednesday for the four-day delay, and another on Monday afternoon after system issues. Picture: Richard Walker

But by 9.20am on Monday, QTAC had advised it portal was again not working properly.

Even when students did receive an offer, some were then running into further technical problems, with the QTAC website not letting them accept their offer.

Universities have demanded an explanation.

“Griffith University is very disappointed in this further delay and the issues students have had accessing their offers through QTAC,” a Griffith spokeswoman said.

“We have asked QTAC for an explanation and further information.”

A QUT spokeswoman said the QTAC delays stretched beyond 1pm and confirmed the university had taken matters into its own hands.

“QUT was informed at 1pm that outages were being resolved and offers would be progressively released throughout the afternoon,” a statement read.

Even when students did receive an offer from QTAC, some were then running into further technical problems, with the QTAC website not letting them accept their offer.

“To assist students awaiting offers from QUT, we are in the process of personally sending out emails to students receiving offers today, so they are aware of their offer.”

The Courier-Mail is also aware of prospective students receiving offers directly from the University of Queensland via email, well before the offer landed in their QTAC portal.

“While this morning’s delay was disappointing, more than 4700 students have received offers to study at UQ today, taking our total semester one offers to more than 9900,” a UQ spokeswoman said.

QTAC confirmed just before 5pm on Monday that all tertiary offers had been sent out, but some students still could not see their offer on the QTAC portal beyond 5.30pm.

Having apologised on Wednesday in announcing the four-day delay to the offer round, QTAC chief executive Dr John Griffiths apologised again for Monday’s issues.

“We regret the added stress and tension this may have brought some applicants ... we’re working as quickly as possible to ensure that applicants can respond to their offer,” he said.

QTAC on Monday made 15,014 offers across 1326 courses on behalf of 16 institutions.

Of these, 9066 offers went out to 2023 year 12 graduates, with the remaining 5948 offers made to non-year 12 applicants.