The Ultimate Guide To Uni Early Entry Programs

It’s getting to be around that time of year where you’ll start seeing people talking about early entry, and you might be having a think about whether you’ll check it out. But not all early entry programs are the same, so here's a little rundown of why early entry is worth applying for, and how to know which program to apply for.

You can secure your place at your fave uni, and your preferred course

If you did well in Year 11, and you have a good idea of what you want to do after high school, early entry schemes are a great shout. You can submit your preferences, and get an offer for your dream course at uni before everyone else has even thought about getting their act together.

By the way, if you’re not 100% certain on what you’d like to do, that’s totally cool too. At UTS, you still have the ability to defer your early application offer, you can apply for multiple courses, and change your preferences up until September 4th!

You can go into your HSC with peace of mind

The biggest benefit from early entry programs is that you’ll receive your entry offers before the HSC. Sometimes you’ll hear people saying that doing an early entry program means that you don’t have to worry about your ATAR at all - but that’s not really the truth. First of all, for some undergraduate programs, you’ll still need a minimum ATAR requirement even if you’ve received a provisional offer from your uni of choice. Also, just to be clear, this is different from a selection rank.
For example, at UTS you’ll need to meet the following minimum ATAR requirements to be eligible for that early entry offer:

• 80 ATAR for Law courses
• 75 ATAR for Health courses
• 70 ATAR for Education courses
• 69 ATAR for all other courses

Secondly, it’s always good to have the best ATAR you can get in your back pocket, just in case you decide to change plans. The big thing here is that if you’ve got an offer ready to go, you can really concentrate on making the most out of your final year in school.

Or if you’ve experienced hardship in your final year of school, you can apply through the Schools Recommendation Scheme (SRS). Just as a heads-up, it’s a different scheme with a different process. You can take a look at the UTS SRS over here for more info.

So how does it all work?

The exact specifics are going to depend on which university you apply to, but we can take UTS as an example.

For starters, you’ll want to have up to three courses in mind for your early entry application. You should probably pick a course that you’ve done a bit of research on! There are more that 200 undergraduate courses at UTS which you can take a look at over here.

Once you’re ready, you’ll need to have your student number that was given to you by your state or territory’s board of studies. For example, if you’re from NSW you’ll want your NESA student number. You’ll also be asked to log in with your PIN, which is just the first four digits of your date of birth. For example, if your date of birth is 03/10/2005 your PIN will be 0310.

Once you’ve got all this stuff ready, you’re good to go! If you’re interested in putting in an early offer to Australia’s #1 young university, you can head over to the UTS Early Entry application process right here!