Providing education opportunities for all students

UNSW launches its first early conditional offer admission pathway for students from low-SES backgrounds. Led by Access and Equity, the pathway will allow students to gain an early conditional entry to UNSW, empowering them with the knowledge that they have a secure place at UNSW should they meet the offer criteria, prior to finishing their HSC.

“The suburb you live in, where you attend school and your socio-economic status shouldn’t act as a barrier to attending university. The success of this pathway is critical for realising UNSW’s strategic target for greater representation of students from low-SES backgrounds by meliorating some of the structural barriers that are at play. Our access rate is a highly visible and concrete measure of how diverse and inclusive the University is.” Mary Teague.

Those who attend one of UNSW’s 400 Gateway partner schools will be eligible to apply. To best prepare students for successful admission and transition, UNSW’s Access and Equity (Students) will deliver Winter Gateway: an online outreach program tailored for current HSC students in a context of major upheaval and uncertainty. Academic preparedness, strategies for students to maximise their ATAR and a community of students connected to our UNSW Ambassadors and faculties is core to the program.

The online program will be delivered during the Winter School holidays, where students can access one-on-one mentoring from University students, academic tutoring, information about degrees and university, and guidance in submitting a successful Gateway application.

This pathway combined with outreach, equity scholarships and transition support across the student life-cycle, will work to increase our enrolments and graduate success for this cohort at UNSW. UNSW 2025 strategy’s target is for 13% of all under-graduate domestic students to be from low-SES backgrounds, it currently sits at 9.8%. But UNSW won’t stop at 13%. We will continue to aim towards the national average access rate which is close to 17%. For parity with the population an aspirational target would be 20%.

Applications for the UNSW Gateway Winter program close 29 May 2020. Register today.