Work and Life Experience
If you completed or left high school more than two years ago, you are considered an applicant with work and life experience.
Work and life experience may be a combination of experience, activities or factors that demonstrate you are ready to undertake higher education. This may include activities like formal qualifications, community involvement, work experience or other factors and programs like professional and para-professional qualifications that are relevant to your career goals or the industry you are employed or seeking entry into.
Year 12 results (OP/ATAR/selection rank) do not expire once you have left school.
Year 12 results may be considered for an offer to a course however this depends on whether you have additional qualifications (including other recognised qualifications completed while at school or post-school). Additional qualifications that may be considered for admission include:
- formal qualifications such as Senior External Examination results
- higher education study (such as Bachelor degree level and higher)
- VET study such as competency-based and graded AQF Certificates III and IV (completed), diplomas and sub-degree level study and bridging and preparation courses
- other post-secondary professional and paraprofessional qualifications (including some creative arts, language and civil aviation qualifications, memberships of professional associations for which qualifying exams are undertaken, and police, emergency defence force service.
If you are an applicant with work experience, generally this means that you will have more than six months of work experience, in paid employment. Your employment experience does not need to relate to the course you are interested in. Your work experience may be used to help you gain a selection rank and this selection rank that may be used on your application.
As part of the process, you will need to document your employment by providing a statement from your employer outlining the role you performed. If you are self-employed, this statement will need to be provided by your accountant, solicitor or tax agent.
Find out more about including work experience in your application including how experience is assessed, how to document your employment.
Not all courses accept work experience as an entry pathway, so get in touch with us to find out what the best entry pathway option is for you and your course of interest
The Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT) may be an option for you, if you do not have formal academic qualifications and would like to use an alternative entry pathway to university.
The STAT is a two-hour aptitude test, that tests your readiness and ability to undertake further tertiary study and provides you with a selection rank that may be used on your application.
Age restrictions do apply, find out more about sitting the STAT.
Not all courses accept a STAT result as an entry pathway, so if you are thinking of sitting the STAT, make sure you contact us to find out whether it is the right entry pathway option for you and your course of interest.
At CQUniversity we recognise several tertiary preparatory, bridging, enabling and foundation programs offered by higher education providers across Australia.
Our Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS) course is an ideal enabling course that provides a pathway for people wishing to gain entry to and excel in higher education. It helps you gain the personal and academic skills necessary for successful tertiary study. STEPS can be tailored to your needs and helps you meet prerequisites or assumed knowledge. On successful completion of STEPS, you are eligible to apply for direct entry to an undergraduate course at CQUniversity.
HOW TO APPLY
In most situations you will need to apply via a Tertiary Admission Centre, such as QTAC, UAC, VTAC, or SATAC, or via our ApplyCQUni portal to apply for an undergraduate course at CQUniversity.
The TAC you apply via is dependent on the course that you would like to study and usually where you live (if applying to study online) or where you intend to study (if applying to study on campus).
You can view the application options available for each course on our course pages within the How to Apply section. You can also contact us to find out the best way to apply for your course of interest.
FIND OUT MORE
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
You can be assigned more than one selection rank, for study and experience you hold such as your Year 12 results, vocational education and training, higher education study and even your employment history. If you have been assigned more than one selection rank, you will generally be considered for admission based on the highest rank. Exceptions may apply to some courses and courses with additional entry requirements.
You are required to meet relevant subject pre-requisites for the course you are applying for. Subject pre-requisites can be satisfied by successful completion of Senior secondary subjects or equivalent.
Subject prerequisites are not generally able to be met through Certificate level study.
If your course of interest has additional entry requirements these must also be satisfied.
You may be eligible for credit from previous study, or for Recognised Prior Learning (RPL). Applications for credit are assessed following acceptance of an offer. This means you must first apply for your course of interest, receive an offer and then accept the offer before applying for credit. You can view possible credit based on dedicated pathways and articulations via our Credit Calculator.