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VTAC stands for Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre, and it’s the central organisation that manages the application process for universities and TAFEs in Victoria. VTAC also calculates the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) for students, based on their VCE results. 

Your VTAC ID is a unique identification number issued by VTAC to manage your university and TAFE applications. It’s used to track applications for courses, scholarships and special consideration schemes (SEAS).

For current Victorian Year 12 students, your VTAC ID is your student number. For non-Year 12 applicants, you will receive a system-generated ID when you create a VTAC account. You can find this in the emails you receive from VTAC, or by logging into your VTAC account.

1. Visit the and follow the instructions to set up your account and complete your profile. 
2. Navigate to the course application section to search and select courses. You can also browse Swinburne’s course search (note the VTAC course code on the ‘how to apply’ tab of each course page).
3. Add your chosen courses to your VTAC preference list, placing your most preferred course at number 1.
4. Once your course preferences have been added, submit your application and pay the application fee. Remember, you can make changes to your preference list during change of preference windows.

For courses commencing in 2026, VTAC applications open on 4 August 2025. 

For courses commencing in 2026, ‘Timely’ applications close on 29 September. ‘Late’ applications close on 31 October, and ‘very late’ applications close on 5 December 2025.

VTAC preferences are a list of university and TAFE courses you wish to apply for, ranked in order of your most preferred to your least preferred. Each preference is considered by that course’s institution, with offers made on your highest eligible preference.

We recommend adding your dream course to the top of your list. It’s also a good idea to include options with broader entry requirements, like UniLink diplomas or VE/higher ed pathway packages. This way, you’ll have a pathway to university no matter what your Year 12 results are.

You can update your preference list as often as you like during ‘change of preference’ windows. You can add or remove courses, or switch around the order of your preferences. Remember to keep the course you want to study the most at the highest place on your list.

Log in to your VTAC account and navigate to the preferences section on your dashboard. 

To remove a course, click on the red ‘x’ next to that preference.

To add a new course to your preference list, search courses using the institution and qualification filter, or by using a keyword search. From the search results, hit the ‘+’ button to add a course to your preference list. 

You can re-order your preference list by using the up and down arrows on each line.

There are specific timeframes in which you can change your preferences, based on the dates of each VTAC offer round. These dates are listed on the .
 

For courses commencing in 2026, offer release dates are:

November round (domestic non-Year 12 applicants only): 18 November 2025

December round: 23 December 2025

January offer round 1: 12 January 2026 

January offer round 2: 27 January 2026

February offer round 1: 3 February 2026

February offer round 2: 10 February 2026

February offer round 3: 17 February 2026  

• VTAC sends your finalised list of eight preferences to education institutions on your behalf.

• Institutions assess your eligibility for the courses on your list, then advise VTAC whether they wish to offer you a place.

• VTAC collates information on all the courses on your preference list that you’re eligible to receive an offer for.

• During each offer round, VTAC will issue you an offer for the highest course on your preference list that institutions have offered you a place in. 

You can receive a maximum of one offer in each VTAC offer round, even if you’ve been determined to be eligible for multiple courses. You can continue to receive offers in later offer rounds by changing your preferences.

Once you receive or accept an offer, move this course to a lower position on your preference list. This allows you to continue to receive offers for other courses in subsequent offer rounds.

For domestic and international Year 12 applicants, there are 6 offer rounds, starting in December.

For domestic non-Year 12 applicants, there is an extra offer round in November. Non-Year 12 applicants do not participate in the December offer round.