4 ms·

I always found the US system for college admissions unnecessarily onerous on both the student and the colleges. The Australian system is comparatively simple -

I always found the US system for college admissions unnecessarily onerous on both the student and the colleges. The Australian system is comparatively simple - your results (generally from your final two years) are collated by the state, some adjustments are made to the score based on criteria supplied by the university (eg. unis might decide to target students with lower socio-economic scores, or from regional areas), and then a ranking is produced. At the same time, students have supplied an ordered list of their uni/course preferences. The two lists are compared, and students are offered the highest course they qualify for. If you don't get your first preference, you can reject the offer and hope that someone else has done the same for a higher preference. For courses with an interview component or other requirements, those are handled in parallel. Generally Undergraduate-entry Medicine is the primary course with that sort of thing - the extra testing is carried out near the start of the year and interviews once the school year ends. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the optimal solution, and nor is it particularly fun, but it works, and it means you're focused on school rather than writing 10-million essays describing why you want to go to your safety college.

0xfaded 8y ago
I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted. The score is based on the previous year's intake, so the universities must predict demand for each degree in advance to meet their enrolment targets. In practice this means they set the bar a little high and give the remaining spots to students who didn't make the score on a case by case basis.
- jackvalentine 8y ago
  > I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted. With the funding cap on commonwealth supported places announced in the MYEFO this will eventually change back to a capped entry system.

0xfaded 8y ago

I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted. The score is based on the previous year's intake, so the universities must predict demand for each degree in advance to meet their enrolment targets. In practice this means they set the bar a little high and give the remaining spots to students who didn't make the score on a case by case basis.

jackvalentine 8y ago
> I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted. With the funding cap on commonwealth supported places announced in the MYEFO this will eventually change back to a capped entry system.