debs1966

Can anyone please advise me my daughter finishes her A Levels this year at which point she will be 19. What age do most students start Uni in Oz please?

Are there any tuition fees to enrol on a course in Perth? Also, do they have to feel in a UCAS registration like they do here in the UK.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Debbie

HelenTD

There are 5 unis in Perth:
Murdoch www.murdoch.edu.au
Curtin www.curtin.edu.au
Notre Dame www.nd.edu.au
University of Western Australia www.uwa.edu.au
Edith Cowan University www.ecu.edu.au

If you go to each of the websites you can click on links for school leavers. At the moment, kids are 17 starting uni, but that will eventually become 18. However, there are also a lot of mature-aged students, so 19 would be considered as young as the 17 and 18 year olds. I can't help on info on getting the 'A' levels into an entry score for here, but I'm sure someone else will help out, and the unis will have someone there to answer emails or phone calls, probably not until Tuesday, though.

There are also rules about paying fees and whether you are a citizen or permanent resident (defer fees or pay upfront if you have loads of $) or temporary resident (pay much higher fees).

debs1966

Hi Helen

Thank you very much for this information I will send them all an email early next week to see what their requirments are for getting to the Universities out there.

Thank you ever so much for the information.

All the best for 2011.

Debs

JAJ

Note that as in the UK, not all Australian universities are equal in terms of reputation or employment prospects.

One other thing to be aware of is that your older child must be "dependent" on you in order to get permanent residence as part of a family unit. There are strict rules about this.

International fees are high.

NKSK version 2

UWA is generally thought to be the strongest of WA universities and research (Shanghai, Times) seems to place it at about the equivalent of good red-bricks such as Leeds, Newcastle etc - just making the global top 200 universities.

University offers for WA school leavers is done through TISC: http://www.tisc.edu.au/static/home.tisc

Student selection is done through a ranking system based on final year results - this is called an ATAR with the highest ATAR being 99.95. From looking at TISC's website on FAQs it appears that A level equivalence is given by the university admissions officer (so you'll need to contact them directly) but as an indication the following is copied from a Sydney university's website (http://www.international.mq.edu.au/s...rgraduate/atar )(excuse the lack of formatting) but it will not be far from WA universities.

The ATAR equivalency is calculated from results in three Advanced Level (A2) subjects, where A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2, E=1. Up to two Advanced Subsidiary (AS) Level results may be included and will be calculated based on A=2.5, B=2, C=1.5, D=1, E=0.5.


ATAR 94.45 93.55 90.80 85.25 85.00 84.95 84.65 84.60 84.50 83.50
Equivalent 13.5 13.5 12.5 10.5 10 10 10 10 10 9
ATAR 81.65 81.00 80.80 80.00 79.00 78.00 77.10 75.85 75.00
Equivalent 8.5 8 8 8 7.5 7 7 6.5 6

Course entry equirements (called 'cut-offs' ) are relative to each university but they will be higher for UWA than for say ECU. (as they would be for Oxford compared with, say, Leicester). Cut-offs for WA universities can be found here: https://www.tisc.edu.au/static/guide...ive-index.tisc but as an example, Law would need an ATAR of 96.30 which from looking at the table above would be equivalent to about 3 A grades whereas Commerce with an ATAR of 80.00 would be equivalent to about a B, C and E (8 points).

A levels have historically been generally regarded highly by Australian universities although I suspect that their value is now more limited given grade inflation.

One last thing, entry to university is not subject specific (with some exceptions such as needing English and Maths (for certain subjects)). Consequently, what final school year students sit is generally irrelevant (and to counter the tendency for all students to pick easy subjects, each subject's student marks are adjusted upwards up downwards depending on degree of difficulty).

Contrast this with the UK where certain A level subjects have to be sat for certain university courses and in some cases some subjects are not counted because of perceived dumbing down of said subjects.
WA university procedures are, I think, better than the UK - which seems to become more of a schmozzle, along with the examination system in its entirety, with each passing year.