Victorian university admissions debacle could affect thousands

Students were mistakenly told they were eligible for a scholarship for Australia’s most prestigious university due to an administrative error at the state’s tertiary admissions centre.

Young people applying for equity scholarships at Melbourne University were told last week that they were eligible for the scheme to study at the institution next year.

The University of Melbourne. Credit: Penny Stephens

But the university has had to write again to applicants, many of whom are finishing year 12 this year, to tell them they were not eligible, after they were “misclassified” by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC).

News of the bureaucratic error comes as tens of thousands of students across the state wait to receive their VCE results and university admission scores (ATAR) on Thursday.

VTAC is a not-for-profit operation funded by the state’s tertiary institutions. It issued more than 45,000 ATARs in 2023 and managed 68,000 applications that year for places at universities, TAFEs and other higher education providers.

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The students affected by the VTAC error were incorrectly identified as the first members of their families to go to university, a key selection criteria for some equity scholarships.

Misclassified applicant information was sent to other public Victorian universities, but only Melbourne, which runs its annual scholarship intake earlier than its counterparts, acted on the faulty data.

Monash University confirmed on Tuesday that it had received faulty data from VTAC but had not acted on it.

Neither Melbourne University nor VTAC were able to say on Tuesday how many prospective students had been affected by the bungle, but a source close to the matter not authorised to speak publicly said the numbers might run into the thousands.

Most Australian universities offer some form of equity scholarships to help disadvantaged students get into tertiary education by making allowances, such as reduced course entry scores, for students facing personal, financial or medical hardship.

Under Melbourne University’s Access Melbourne scholarships scheme, an applicant with an ATAR of 74 might get into an arts degree normally requiring a score of 88, or into a bachelor of commerce course, usually requiring 92, with an ATAR of 80.

A VTAC spokesman conceded on Tuesday that a mistake had been made, but said that only applicants to the University of Melbourne had been affected.

“Some students who applied to the University of Melbourne were sent incorrect information relating to their eligibility for the Access Melbourne program,” the admissions centre spokesman said.

“The University of Melbourne will provide further advice to those applicants who were affected, and VTAC has since issued correct data to all tertiary institutions.

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“While no other applicants or universities have been impacted, we acknowledge the confusion this has caused.”

The university said it was working with the admissions centre to support the students incorrectly identified as being eligible for the Access Melbourne program but that no offers of scholarships had been made.

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