Overview of Australian Universities

University of Sydney

Up to 2019, there are 43 universities in Australia, including 39 state universities, 1 national university, two international universities and one private university. Australian universities are able to issue bachelor, master and PhD degrees whose qualifications are widely recognized by countries around the world including China.

Higher education in Australia began in the 1950s, both the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne followed the models of University of Oxford and Cambridge University. By 1911, in order to meet the needs of the country's rapid development, the six major cities had already owned their own universities.

Australian universities are committed to nurturing future leaders, encouraging innovation, creativity and independent thinking, and also train graduates from the international workplace. A large number of Australian alumni and researchers have made breakthroughs in different fields, such as flight recorder (black box), wireless networks (Wi-Fi), bionic ears, cervical cancer vaccines, vitro fertilization techniques, the discovery of penicillin, and so on, all of which reflect Australian universities world-leading innovation. Over the past century, Australian education has trained 11 Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine, science and literature.

Most of Australian universities have a two-semester system, an academic year starts from March and ends in November, the first semester is from early March to early June, and the second semester is from July to early November. Universities usually start in early March, and end in November. An academic year is usually divided into 2 or 3 semesters depends on universities. Recently, more and more universities start to accept freshmen in July, but it varies according to courses.

Degree setting of Australian higher education:

• Bachelor
• Bachelors: You can enroll after high school graduation or completion of the Diploma in Vocational and Technical Education (TAFE). Most courses need 3-4 years and medical courses need 6 years.
• Honours Degrees: If you have a good grade during your bachelor's degree, you can take one more year to study and deepen your knowledge of the professional knowledge and get it after you complete the paper.
• Double Degrees: Generally, you can get dobule degrees after one more year studying added to the original subject years. Many students enroll in a double or joint degree bachelor's degree to obtain two bachelor's degrees.

• Master
• Postgraduate: including postgraduate diplomas and certificates, master's degree programs, research master's programs and doctoral programs, with a 1-2 year program.
• Master Certificate: Bachelor's degree, relevant undergraduate background is not required. The general academic system is half a year.
• Master Diploma: Bachelor's degree, relevant undergraduate background is not required. The general academic system is one year.
• Master Degree: Divided into type by research and type by taught. Requirements of the type by research are relatively higher, and the academic system is 1-1.5 years; the requirements of type by taught generally require only 3 years expirence (relevant bachelor degree) or a certain number of years of experience, causese generally can be completed in 1-2 years.

• PhD
• A PhD degree generally requires a master's degree and a minimum of 3 years of schooling.

Top Universities in the World

Although rankings of the world university can be used as an indicator to measure the strength universities, in fact, the index evaluation system adopted by different types of rankings has different depths and breadths, therefore, the same university performs differently in different rankings, so please avoid overdependence.

全球四大排名机构

QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Being the only international ranking to have received International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) approval, the QS ranking is viewed as one of the three most-widely read university rankings in the world.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings by Times Higher Education (THE) magazine, it is often considered as one of the most widely observed university rankings together with Academic Ranking of World Universities and QS World University Rankings.

U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking is an annual publication of university rankings by U.S. News & World Report. The popularity of U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges rankings is reflected in its 2014 release, which brought 2.6 million unique visitors and 18.9 million page views to usnews.com in one day.

Academic Ranking of World Universities, also known as Shanghai Ranking, is an annual publication of university rankings by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy which is an independent organization focusing on higher education. ARWU is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely observed university rankings.

Top 4 College Alliances

The Group of Eight (Go8) is a coalition of eight world-leading research intensive Australian universities.

Members:

University of Adelaide

University of Western Australia

Monash University

University of Queensland

University of New South Wales

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Australian National University

The sandstone universities are an informally defined group comprising Australia's oldest tertiary education institutions, all of them have buildings constructed primarily of sandstone.

Members:

University of Tasmania

University of Adelaide

University of Western Australia

University of Queensland

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Founded in 1997, The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) is a consortium of 50 leading research universities in 17 economies of the Pacific Rim.

Members:

University of New South Wales

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Australian National University

The Pacific Asian Consortium for International Business Education and Research (PACIBER) was established in Hawaii in 1988. It holds an annual conference since 2001, and there are currently 27 universities.

Members:

University of New South Wales

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Rankings of Australian Universities