Griffith University has bucked the tightening trend in the higher education market experiencing growth in first preferences and in the overall quality of applicants offered places in the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre’s (QTAC’s) major offer round this year.

QTAC applications across all universities in Queensland dropped 2.1 per cent this year compared with last year, where as Griffith University’s applications increased by 6.04 per cent, and its first preferences increased by 6.7 per cent.

Griffith also entered the University Admissions Centre (UAC) for the first time this year, and anticipates making a number of offers in the UAC offer rounds to people from Northern New South Wales, mainly to the growing Griffith Gold Coast campus.

University Academic Registrar, Dr Richard Armour, said a total of 7763 offers had been made in the QTAC first round, with further offers planned for the final round in February for qualified applicants who have met the relevant OP cut off in the majority of disciplines.

“We are pleased to see the standard of applicants offered places at Griffith improve across many disciplines this year, including many increased OP cut offs in law, business and arts,” Dr Armour said.

“We continue to experience growth in many of our new degrees – including offers made for our aviation degree growing by 76 per cent since being introduced last year.

“Meanwhile our new Bachelor of Business (Real Estate and Property) opened strongly this year with 73 applicants offered places. And Griffith’s OP cut offs for popular programs at the Queensland College of Art and the Queensland Conservatorium have increased by one or more bands.”

Of the 7,763 offers made by Griffith University in the major offer round, 47.8 per cent are to current (2007) Queensland Year 12 school leavers.

Despite the strong figures, Griffith University still expects to have places available for qualified new applicants or change of preference applicants in February.

Information on the range of Griffith University’s programs is available by calling Brisbane (07) 3735 7700 or Gold Coast (07) 55528811, or visiting our website — www.griffith.edu.au.