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Surging demand for university places from school leavers this year has meant more than 90 per cent of applicants for some of the most prestigious courses have been left disappointed.
More than 2600 hopefuls vied for just 230 spots in Victoria’s most sought-after course – medicine at Monash University – while officials at the University of Melbourne were forced to renege on a “guarantee” of places in the uni’s popular bachelor of science degree after being overwhelmed with applications.
The next three most popular courses after Monash medicine, were the University of Melbourne’s arts, science and commerce degrees, according to data supplied by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre.
Interest among school leavers in La Trobe University’s occupational therapy with honours course was also brisk this year. There were 500 applicants for 200 places in the 2026 intake, according to VTAC, and a tricky ATAR cut-off of more than 87.
Jack Fisher from Balwyn, going into his second year of the course, said he had been delighted to land a place in the 2025 intake.
“I applied through VTAC and did pretty well in my exams and got an offer from both ACU [Australian Catholic University] and La Trobe, who both do OT, and I haven’t looked back,” Fisher said.
The 19-year-old said he had noticed a rise in enthusiasm for health courses outside of medicine and nursing among his peers.
“A lot of people that I know say they’d really love to be a physio, but the ATAR is really high for that, so not everybody is going to get into it,” Fisher said.
“But if they become an OT, they can really develop their skills and have a really broad sense of where they want to go. Then that can help them venture out into other careers within health.”
At the state’s most prestigious tertiary institution, the University of Melbourne, some applicants for the popular bachelor of science degree missed out on a spot, despite achieving the required ATAR score – 91 this year, up from 89 in 2025 – and other prerequisites for a “guaranteed” first-round offer of a place in the course.
The university’s deputy vice chancellor of education, Gregor Kennedy, said all the spots reserved for domestic students had been taken in the December round of offers, after an unexpected surge in demand, meaning students who had not indicated first preferences for science before December 23 missed out.
“This means that students who had not put the University of Melbourne’s bachelor of science as their first preference in the first VTAC offer round in December 2025 did not receive an offer in subsequent January VTAC offer rounds, as we had exhausted our allocation of places,” Kennedy said.
“The university held in reserve an allocation of places for students whose 2025 results were not available prior to the December offer round.”
VTAC’s figures show the most popular combination of subjects used for an ATAR ranking was English, biology, health and human development, general mathematics and psychology. There were 369 students who used that combination last year to get a ranking to apply for further studies, according to VTAC.
“So far, 77,677 course offers for 2026 have been issued by VTAC to students who will commence their studies later this month,” the assessment authority’s chief executive, Teresa Tjia, said.
She said there were 24,291 combinations of VCE subjects that students who received an ATAR chose.
Caroline Schelle is an education reporter, and joined The Age in 2022. She previously covered courts at AAP.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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