Queensland’s main tertiary offer round pushed back to January 15 due to issues within QTAC

The largest tertiary offer round for Queensland Year 12 graduates has been delayed, meaning some students will have only hours to decide their futures.

The largest tertiary offer round for Queensland Year 12 graduates has been delayed until next week, leaving thousands of prospective university students in limbo.

The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre announced a shock four-day delay to their latest annual offer round in an email to students and universities late on Wednesday after inquiries by The Courier-Mail.

QTAC was due to release thousands of their latest offers on Thursday morning, but students will now be forced to wait until Monday.

In a statement to The Courier-Mail, QTAC did not detail how many students were affected, or explain what went wrong to force this last-minute delay.

In last year’s January offer round, 14,761 offers were made across 1254 courses.

“QTAC has revised this week’s major offer round for tertiary placements, which will now occur on Monday, January 15,” a spokeswoman said.

“The move will allow QTAC to maximise the number of applicants that receive offers in this offer round.

“The deadline for responding to offers will now be 4pm on Friday, January 19.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause applicants and families.”

Class of 2023 graduate Hayley Hoang says she was shocked when she found out university offers had been delayed until Monday. Picture: Richard Walker

Class of 2023 graduate Hayley Hoang said she was shocked to receive the notification from QTAC, particularly that “it was so last minute”.

She is hoping to be offered a place in Occupational Therapy at the University of Queensland.

“I went to a job interview today and they said they needed my university timetable as soon as possible and obviously this will drag out that process for my job now,” she said.

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.”

There was also public condemnation of the delay online.

“This is beyond disappointing,” Kate Campbell wrote on QTAC’s Facebook post.

“These students have met all your required deadlines because had they not you would not have bent the deadlines for them.

“One hour before close of business on the day before your deadline you announce you won’t make it on time.”

Shadow education spokesman Dr Christian Rowan called for a full explanation.

“This announcement is incredibly disappointing, and will be distressing to many students,” he said.

“There needs to be a clear explanation as to how this has occurred and the steps taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

QTAC chief executive John Griffiths. Photo: Richard Walker.

Students can receive early tertiary offers during their final weeks of high school, then the first major offer round was on December 18, but the largest offer release is always in January.

Queensland universities had received no prior notification from QTAC on Wednesday morning about the change, all notifications were done on Wednesday afternoon.

QTAC is responsible for the course application process for all major Queensland tertiary institutions with the board made up of representatives from seven universities.

Griffith University was the first of the state’s tertiary institutions to weigh in.

“While this delay is disappointing it will give QTAC the time to ensure all applicants are assessed before offers go out on Monday. QTAC has assured us that the delay will mean no student is disadvantaged,” a Griffith spokesman said.

A UQ spokeswoman said the university recognised the delay “will be disappointing for prospective students”, but asked them “for their patience” on behalf of QTAC.

Education Minister Di Farmer conceded it was an important milestone for so many people.

“I know how incredibly disappointed everyone will be that the offers would be delayed and that they were give such very short notice,” she said.

Unfortunately, I have no jurisdiction over QTAC

“I sincerely hope that they will be doing everything they can to remedy this situation.

The Queensland University of Technology was contacted for comment.