Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre explains why major uni offer release delayed by four days

Queensland’s Tertiary Admissions Centre has revealed why thousands of prospective students will have to wait till Monday for offers.

A four-day delay in the release of university offers has been blamed on a complex new application processing system and tight time frames.

The largest tertiary offer round for Queensland Year 12 graduates was due to happen on Thursday, but the decision was made late on Wednesday to delay until 10am on Monday.

The rescheduling left thousands of prospective university students in limbo, prompting frustrated families to lash the tertiary entrance body on social media.

Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre chief executive John Griffiths said in a statement late on Thursday: “The method of finalising offers for applicants this year has included new processes that played out across a tight time frame, one that draws on complex factors.

“When it became clear that we needed more time to do this for the maximum number of applicants, we made the decision to delay the offer round.

“It’s not a move we made lightly, but the extra four days will ensure that come Monday, we are able to deliver the best offers and opportunities to the maximum number of applicants.”

Dr Griffiths further apologised to the many students affected.

“We understand applicants and families will have planned around the original date, whether that was looking potential relocation, or scheduling celebrations for this weekend,” he said.

The four-day delay in releasing thousands of tertiary offers has added to the pressure on school leavers and universities facing already tight deadlines.

In one of many such posts, Paula Ryan wrote on QTAC’s Facebook page: “Four days to QTAC is like four years to the impacted students and their families. They’ve met every deadline and waited long enough.”

The University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba has student orientation starting on Monday, while classes will commence on the same day at the Gold Coast’s Bond University.

A UniSQ spokesman said the university – which runs a trimester model for many programs – had made contingency plans.

“UniSQ empathises with students who will receive a delayed QTAC offer and has put in place several initiatives to minimise the impact on enrolling students,” he said.

“Targeted communications to students will include additional orientation opportunities and our student success team will provide additional out-of-hours support over the next four weeks.”

Only Bond medicine students submit applications through QTAC, and university officials remain confident the delay shouldn’t cause major problems for the start of classes.

Some comments on QTAC’s Facebook page called for a full or partial refund of the application fee.

QTAC charges Year 12 students $55 and postgraduate applicants $98, but this increases to $150 if the application is submitted after the September 30 deadline.

“All of us expected to submit our documentation and applications by the due date, you should be held to the same standard,” Jun T’Sui wrote.

“I believe we should be entitled to a refund or partial refund of the fee which we paid.”

QTAC did not address questions of whether refunds were being considered.

QTAC has also not disclosed how many prospective students were affected by the delay. But in last year’s January offer round, 14,761 offers were made across 1254 courses.

The delay is particularly stressful for students applying to interstate universities and needing to arrange accommodation.

Parent Michael Tripet said his daughter was considering Queensland and NSW study options and the delay meant she would only have a few hours to decide.

“It’s really caused a bit of chaos for us, acceptances for interstate universities have to be in for the beginning of next week,” he said.

“Ideally, the kids would have the weekend to choose between options, but now they’ll only get a matter of hours to make decisions between options in NSW and Queensland.”

QTAC has extended the deadline for responding to offers to 4pm on Friday, January 19.

But students cannot change their preferences in the meantime, only after Monday’s offer round.