As QTAC explain in the below presentation, as well as following their other suggestions for writing a preference list, you should organise your preference list by offer round date.
But how do you do this?
I find this can confuse a lot of people, so let’s go through it step-by-step.
1. Make your master preference list
Your master preference list is the preference list you would submit if all the courses you were interested in offered on the same date.
It could look something like this:
- UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy
- Griffith Bachelor of Physiotherapy
- ACU Bachelor of Physiotherapy
- UQ Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology
- QUT Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology
- ACU Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science
2. Research the offer round dates for your chosen courses
Now research the offer round dates for the courses on your preference list to see if they are all the same.
In this example, in 2020, the course offer dates were:
- UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- Griffith Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 23 December
- ACU Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- UQ Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 14 January
- QUT Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 23 December
- ACU Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science – 20 November
If all of your chosen courses offer on the same date, amazing. That makes things easy for you. You should be able to submit your master preference list to QTAC.
If your courses offer on different dates, read on!
3. Make different versions of your preference list for each relevant offer round
Now that we know these different courses first release offers on different dates, we can create a different version of the preference list for each offer round.
Offer Round 1: 20 November 2020
- ACU Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science – 20 November
- Griffith Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 23 December
- QUT Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 23 December
- UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- ACU Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- UQ Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 14 January
By moving the courses that are offering on 20 November 2020 to the top of the preference list, this student will be considered for these courses in the 20 November offer round.
If the student received an offer, they could conditionally accept it, change their preference list, and re-submit it to be considered for the 23 December offer round.
Offer Round 2: 23 December 2020
- Griffith Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 23 December
- QUT Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 23 December
- UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- ACU Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- UQ Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 14 January
- ACU Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science – 20 November – offer conditionally accepted
This student should only move courses that they want more than their conditionally accepted course to the top of their list. In this case, the student still wants for all of their other courses more than the course they have an offer for, so they move the course they have conditionally accepted to the bottom of their preference list.
Offer Round 3: 14 January 2021
- UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- Griffith Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 23 December – conditionally accepted offer
- ACU Bachelor of Physiotherapy – 14 January
- UQ Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 14 January
- QUT Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology – 23 December
- ACU Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science – 20 November – offer superseded by later offer
The student has re-arranged their preference list and submitted it again. Now it is the same as their master preference list. They have conditionally accepted an offer for their second preference course and are hoping for an offer for their first preference course. If they’re successful, their conditional offer will disappear, and they can outright accept their offer for the UQ Bachelor of Physiotherapy.
Re-submitting your preferences counts as a preference change
It is important to note that if you change your preferences and re-submit them, after conditionally accepting an offer, QTAC will count this is as a preference change. Because QTAC only allow three free preference changes, it is a good idea to plan your different preference lists out ahead of time.
Conclusion
Hopefully this has given you some more insight into how to preference by offer round date. In the scenario above, the student had already conditionally accepted an offer for their second preference course by the time their first preference course started to release offers. Amazing!
As always, if you need to talk through your preferencing, or have other curly questions about your QTAC application, get in touch with QTAC.
