How does early entry to Wollongong work and is it worth it? (1 Viewer)

[Fat Homie]

So far I think the procedure is (I've read older posts but maybe things changed)
1. Apply with your marks prior to HSC
2. Interview (if they accept you in stage 1)
3. Final offer type thing? If you maintain your marks

Is it even worth to apply because it seems that if you get early entry you can probably get in anyway after the HSC since the Atars to get in are quite low? My area of interest is computer science/software development so if anyone has experience with that at Wollongong or even better can compare other Uni's to it that would very helpful.

 

[Drdusk]

So far I think the procedure is (I've read older posts but maybe things changed)
1. Apply with your marks prior to HSC
2. Interview (if they accept you in stage 1)
3. Final offer type thing? If you maintain your marks

Is it even worth to apply because it seems that if you get early entry you can probably get in anyway after the HSC since the Atars to get in are quite low? My area of interest is computer science/software development so if anyone has experience with that at Wollongong or even better can compare other Uni's to it that would very helpful.

It's a bit subjective.

Personally for me I thought it wasn't even worth it to apply for stuff like early entry because the only two unis I had in mind were unsw and usyd. Now people usually say it doesn't matter what uni you go to, your education will be exactly the same. This is not necessarily always true, I can vouch for this because I have friends in other unis studying the same degree as me and I've seen their course work.

At the end of the day it depends on what your goals are. Mine were getting into unsw or usyd because they're ranked really well. You may not have that goal, so it's up to you to decide what matters to you in terms of your university.

However I will say one thing, the easier it is to get into a degree between different unis, the less value it holds. That's why graduates from schools such as Harvard and MIT are valued the highest in the United States. Even though this kind of extremely large difference between the ivy leagues and normal schools does not exist in Australia, it still applies to some extent at least. That's not to say you cant succeed, a talented student will do well anywhere.

 

[Fat Homie]

It's a bit subjective.

Personally for me I thought it wasn't even worth it to apply for stuff like early entry because the only two unis I had in mind were unsw and usyd. Now people usually say it doesn't matter what uni you go to, your education will be exactly the same. This is not necessarily always true, I can vouch for this because I have friends in other unis studying the same degree as me and I've seen their course work.

At the end of the day it depends on what your goals are. Mine were getting into unsw or usyd because they're ranked really well. You may not have that goal, so it's up to you to decide what matters to you in terms of your university.

However I will say one thing, the easier it is to get into a degree between different unis, the less value it holds. That's why graduates from schools such as Harvard and MIT are valued the highest in the United States. Even though this kind of extremely large difference between the ivy leagues and normal schools does not exist in Australia, it still applies to some extent at least. That's not to say you cant succeed, a talented student will do well anywhere.

My goal is also to get into Usyd or UNSW but location wise one of the Wollongong campuses is a 10 minute drive for me which is very appealing and if I do not get a high enough atar it might be my only option anyway. Last year for Usyd the lowest accepted atar was 81 for an advanced computing course and I can probably beat that but even if I don't, the Wollongong cut off is 75 so early acceptance or not I will probably get a spot there anyway. It seems like early entry is pretty useless in my scenario especially from what you said above about uni prestige.

 

[Drdusk]

My goal is also to get into Usyd or UNSW but location wise one of the Wollongong campuses is a 10 minute drive for me which is very appealing and if I do not get a high enough atar it might be my only option anyway. Last year for Usyd the lowest accepted atar was 81 for an advanced computing course and I can probably beat that but even if I don't, the Wollongong cut off is 75 so early acceptance or not I will probably get a spot there anyway. It seems like early entry is pretty useless in my scenario especially from what you said above about uni prestige.

That lowest atar of 81 is not a good indication because you would only get in with that if your school had a disadvantage etc. The cutoff for usyd is usually 90 so you wanna aim to get close to there.

I would not pick a uni based on how close it is to you, but that's just my opinion. I mean you can live on campus or like me only go one day a week and watch the lecture recordings if you don't want to travel that far everyday.

In my school probably a 100 people applied for early entry to Macquarie and I know what kind of marks they were getting, most of them were barely passing year 12 and some were even failing. Yet all of them still got in, so you be the judge..

I would suggest apply for the uni since your unsure, and have usyd and unsw as your top preferences, that way if you don't get in at least you have a back up option.

 

[Cherrybomb56]

That lowest atar of 81 is not a good indication because you would only get in with that if your school had a disadvantage etc. The cutoff for usyd is usually 90 so you wanna aim to get close to there.

I would not pick a uni based on how close it is to you, but that's just my opinion. I mean you can live on campus or like me only go one day a week and watch the lecture recordings if you don't want to travel that far everyday.

In my school probably a 100 people applied for early entry to Macquarie and I know what kind of marks they were getting, most of them were barely passing year 12 and some were even failing. Yet all of them still got in, so you be the judge..

I would suggest apply for the uni since your unsure, and have usyd and unsw as your top preferences, that way if you don't get in at least you have a back up option.

what's the main difference between usyd and unsw?

 

[Drdusk]

what's the main difference between usyd and unsw?

UNSW is a uni and USYD is howar...

To be honest both unis rank the same so even though there's some difference in terms of what degree you choose, it's nothing that's so majorly different. However Unsw more known for Engineering, Computing and Usyd is more known for Medicine, Law(I think) etc..

 

[Cherrybomb56]

UNSW is a uni and USYD is howar...

To be honest both unis rank the same so even though there's some difference in terms of what degree you choose, it's nothing that's so majorly different. However Unsw more known for Engineering, Computing and Usyd is more known for Medicine, Law(I think) etc..

wow really. is the employment rate the same for both uni's?

 

[Drdusk]

wow really. is the employment rate the same for both uni's?

Yup

 

[Cherrybomb56]

How do you know which one to choose? when you were deciding your uni's?

 

[Drdusk]

How do you know which one to choose? when you were deciding your uni's?

Unsw is better for computing, quite a bit better maybe because I've heard a lot of bad stories from students at usyd. And for Science really there's not a difference as such, so unsw was the way to go

 

[Cherrybomb56]

cool. Do you enjoy your time there?