QTAC help: does your teen understand the application process?

One of the biggest decisions a Year 12 student has to make is which university they want to attend and what course they would like to study. In Queensland, the application process is run through the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC).

The prospect of leaving high school is scary but exciting for any teenager. The world is full of possibilities, and they’re assigned the daunting task of deciding where they want their adult life to lead.

Teenagers who want a higher education and the power to do what they love typically choose university as the next step. For teens in Queensland, this means going through the QTAC application process.

There’s a lot of information to take in regarding QTAC, and to make it easy for your teen to understand, we’ve broken down everything you need to know to help them.

What is QTAC?

Each state and territory in Australia has its own admissions centre, established to support admission into tertiary courses on behalf of multiple tertiary institutions (including universities). QTAC is Queensland's tertiary admissions centre. It's the not-for-profit organisation that will process your teen's Queensland university application.

The QTAC application process

If your teen is hoping to attend university in Queensland after finishing high school, they’ll need to apply through QTAC. Current high school students need to apply via the QTAC website.

How QTAC preferences work

In the application, your teen will be asked to add their QTAC preferences under the course preference section. They can add up to 6 course preferences on their QTAC application, stating their favoured course as their first preference. They can do this by:

1. manually searching for the desired course or inserting the QTAC course code
2. selecting ‘add’ once the course has been found
3. adding, editing, reordering or deleting the course preference list
4. continuing to the next section once the course preference list is complete and finalised.

How the preferences are ordered depends on whether your teen is doing this before or after receiving an offer. Your teen can find guidance on how to order their preferences via the QTAC website.

Things to consider when selecting and ordering QTAC preferences:

• Check if any preferences have fixed closing dates.
• Note some courses starting in the same semester might have different offer round dates. Check the offer round dates in the course search on the QTAC website.
• If applying for courses being offered in different rounds, make sure to order them chronologically, according to the round date.

Once your teen submits their QTAC application, they can change their preferences up to 3 times free of charge. After this, each change of preference will incur a fee.

QTAC offer rounds

Offers will be notified via email and SMS. With each QTAC offer round date, applicants receive only one offer. This will be for their highest eligible preference, meaning the one for which they’ve met the admission criteria and selection rank requirement.

Offers need to be responded to by the date and time specified in the offer letter to ensure they don’t expire. To respond to an offer, there are 3 options:

• outright
• conditional with no change of preference
• conditional with change of preference.

For all 3 of these options, your teen can choose to accept, reject or defer their offer. If your teen didn’t receive an offer because they didn’t meet the entry requirements, they can either change their preferences for upcoming QTAC offer rounds or take an upgrading pathway to improve chances of entry in the future. It’s also possible the institution will contact them regarding pathway offers.

QTAC key dates for university study commencing in 2026

There are several key QTAC application dates that should be marked in your teen’s calendar. While specific dates for Year 12 students wishing to study at The University of Queensland commencing Semester 1 2026 have not been released yet, you can use the approximate dates outlined below as an indication:

• UQ's ATAR guarantee will be released mid-2025.
• QTAC applications will open in early August 2025.
• Early offer rounds typically commence from mid to late August.
• ATARs are typically released mid-December, just before Christmas.
• UQ's ATAR Advice online event will be held the Sunday after ATARs are released.
• UQ will release some offers in the December offer round, just before Christmas.
• Main round offers will be released early to mid-January 2026.
• Semester 1 classes commence at UQ 23 February 2026.

When do QTAC applications close?

The due date to apply and submit documentation in time for when most offers are released in January 2026 will likely be early December 2025. See the QTAC key dates page for when QTAC applications close for specific offer rounds.

QTAC fees

Exact QTAC fees for Year 12 students applying to commence study in Semester 1 2026 are yet to be released. As an indication, the application fee for Year 12 students applying from 1 August 2024 to 28 February 2025 was $65.

It’s free to change preferences up to 3 times – after this, it will incur a fee with each subsequent change. In 2024 the fee was $65.

It’s worth noting that applications will not be processed until QTAC fees have been paid, so be sure your teen doesn’t leave their application until the last minute.