Welcome and session overview

G'day. Welcome to the National Virtual Expo. I'm your host for this session on the Australian National University. My name is Rob Malicki. I'm coming to you today from Garigal land in Sydney. I pay my respects to the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I live and work.

To those of you joining me live, it's great to have you here. You can ask any questions in the chat on whatever platform you're watching on, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube. You can also ask questions directly on the session hub. For those of you watching the recording, we have the Choosing Your Uni Discord, where every question will get a response, whether it's something specifically about ANU or more generally about how university works and how to make your decision. If you're a parent, we have a Facebook community just for you. All the details are down in the description below.

So in the next 20 minutes, here's what we're going to cover. We're going to talk about what ANU is known for and who does well studying there. We're going to hear a little bit about what students say about studying there and look at the academic strengths. We're then going to get into some of the data, looking at what the rankings and ratings say about ANU, and I'll take you behind the scenes on that, because you need to understand how to interpret some of it. And to finish up, I'm going to talk about the universities I would compare ANU with if I were making the choice of where to study.

What makes ANU distinctive

Six Nobel Prize winners. The smallest university in the Group of Eight. And the only university in Australia created by an act of the Federal Parliament. That's ANU. And it isn't just a university. It was literally built to serve the nation, and that kind of changes everything about what it is and who it's for.

So let me start by being upfront about who it isn't for. If you're looking for a buzzing inner-city campus with 50,000 students where you walk out the front door and you're among the cafes and the laneways, that possibly isn't Canberra. It's a planned city. It's not a metropolis. It's quieter, it's smaller, and for some people that might sound a bit boring. Personally, I think Canberra is kind of awesome, but that's a whole other topic.

If you want to keep all your options open and you're not particularly interested in deep academic work or research, there are probably universities that will give you a more relaxed ride. ANU attracts people from all over Australia who are genuinely curious, the kinds of students who want to understand how things work and not just get past the exam and get their degree. And of course, if you need to live at home to manage your costs and home is not in Canberra, then this is where it gets complicated. Lots of students do move to ANU from all over Australia, and it has an incredible on-campus accommodation ecosystem, which we'll talk more about. But if that's not going to work for you, then this might not be the institution.

Research culture and the PhB degree

Here are three things I think define ANU. First is research. This is a university that actually lets undergrads in on the action. Most universities talk about research-led teaching, but ANU was literally a postgraduate research institution for its first 14 years. They didn't even take undergraduates until 1960, and that DNA hasn't gone anywhere.

They have something called the Bachelor of Philosophy, the PhB, which is a four-year degree where you get one-on-one research supervision from your very first year. That's unique. You're not waiting until Honours or a masters to do original research. You're literally doing it from day one. That programme is extremely selective, but even in the standard degrees, there's a seriousness about inquiry that's baked into the culture at ANU.

The Canberra location advantage

Second is the Canberra location, and this has some major advantages. The campus is sitting pretty close to the parliamentary triangle: Parliament House, the National Library, the National Gallery, the National Archives, the CSIRO, and literally dozens of government departments. So if you're interested in politics, policy, international relations, law, economics, or the public service, you're not just studying these things in the classroom, you're studying them next door to where stuff actually happens.

Students get access to parliamentary internships, policy placements, and connections to the Australian Public Service that students at other universities simply don't get, either at all, or at least not in the same way.

A deliberately small campus community

Third, ANU is pretty small by national standards, and that's deliberate. It has roughly 24,000 to 25,000 students. Compare that to some of its Group of Eight peers: Monash has 86,000 students, the University of New South Wales has 65,000. The Group of Eight, just as a quick aside, is the coalition of Australia's leading research-intensive universities, the most prestigious institutions, doing the most research, with the biggest brands on paper. ANU is actually the smallest of the Group of Eight by a considerable margin.

What that means in practice is smaller class sizes in many programmes, a genuine residential college culture where you actually get to know the people you live with, and a beautiful campus that feels like a community rather than a small city. Sitting right in the shadow of Black Mountain and next to the heart of the Canberra city centre, with lots of open space and great facilities, I think the ANU campus is a serious advantage.

A quick note on the flexible double degree structure, because this matters if you're comparing ANU to the University of Melbourne. Melbourne uses what's called the Melbourne Model: you do a broad three-year undergraduate degree and then specialise at postgraduate level. ANU does essentially the opposite. You can enter directly into specialised degrees from Year 12, and the flexible double degree system lets you complete two full bachelor degrees in essentially four years, sometimes five, depending on the exact programme. So if you already know what you want to study, whether that's law, or Asian studies, or law and Asian studies, or science and philosophy, you can do both at the same time without needing to think about postgraduate study right out of the box. That's a genuinely different approach, and for some students it's a much better fit.

Academic and research strengths

Let's look at where ANU is strongest academically. If I had to pick headline disciplines, they'd be politics and international relations, where ANU consistently ranks among the best in the world; development studies; Asian studies, particularly China, Indonesia, and the Pacific; philosophy; and the physical sciences, especially astronomy and astrophysics.

That astronomy strength isn't just a line on a brochure. ANU operates the Mount Stromlo Observatory, about 18km from the main campus, and Siding Spring Observatory at Coonabarabran in New South Wales. Professor Brian Schmidt, who was ANU's vice-chancellor until 2023, won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for discovering that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He did that work at ANU. The university has also been associated with five other Nobel laureates across its history, including in fields like medicine and economics. For a university of its size, that is absolutely extraordinary.

The College of Asia and the Pacific is another standout area for me. There aren't many places in Australia, or anywhere honestly, where you can get this depth of expertise in Indo-Pacific affairs, Asian languages, strategic studies, and development policy. Being in Canberra, right next to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the various embassies, means these aren't abstract subjects. Students end up doing placements and research projects with real policy implications. If Asian studies, policy, and development are things that interest you, I would absolutely consider moving to Canberra to study them at ANU.

For students thinking about law, ANU's law programme is consistently ranked among the top in Australia. Combined with the proximity to the High Court and the Federal Court, law students here get access to the legal system at its highest levels without having to travel interstate. That's a genuine advantage.

Something that's new and growing at ANU is cyber security and national security studies. The university has been investing heavily in these areas, as well as in quantum technology and artificial intelligence. These are critical topics for the future, and not just for certain fields. They're going to be shaking up every industry.

The medical school is relatively young at ANU, established in 2004, but it builds on the John Curtin School of Medical Research, which has been doing world-class biomedical research since the university's earliest days.

The "Renew ANU" restructure: what students should know

I have to flag this honestly. ANU is going through a bit of a bumpy time right now. It's undergoing a restructure called Renew ANU, which launched in late 2024 under then-new Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell. This is all about reorganising the academic college structure and streamlining administration. It has been a turbulent period for the university, and it's a real pity because Genevieve Bell is an extraordinary academic and scholar. I can't comment on leadership or what's happening inside the university, but it has become quite politicised, it's hit the mainstream media, and perhaps some of the consultation and communication hasn't been what it needs to be. That's unfortunately played out in the national newspapers.

But one thing to remember is that restructures happen all the time, not just in universities but in all kinds of large organisations. Just because ANU has hit the newspapers for this doesn't mean it's something exclusive to ANU. As a student there, will this impact you? My honest answer is probably not, for the most part. You go to your classes, you study with your academics, you do your work, you hang out on campus. Things will be pretty normal. You might see some movement around campus, whether that's academics taking action or perhaps raising it in class, or the student union getting involved. We do see this from time to time. But for the most part, this certainly wouldn't turn me off going to ANU just because a restructuring process is ongoing. My prediction is that once the new Vice-Chancellor is appointed and has had time to settle in, we'll see things starting to calm down and get resolved, and the institution can keep moving forward.

Student satisfaction and graduate employment data

ANU has the research pedigree and the Canberra location advantage. But how do the actual student satisfaction numbers stack up? And here's one that might surprise you: where does ANU land on graduate salaries compared to the rest of the Group of Eight?

On the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) survey, which is the Australian Government data set where hundreds of thousands of students and thousands of graduate employers are surveyed, ANU scores around 79.4% for overall student satisfaction. That puts it above the national average, but not at the top of the table. Universities like Bond, a small institution in Queensland, are at 88%, and Deakin University in Melbourne is at 81%. So for a Group of Eight institution, ANU has got a really solid result. Both Melbourne and Monash sit considerably lower, at around 73–74%.

Teaching quality also does pretty well at ANU, which probably comes down to its smaller cohort size and its research-active staff generally supporting strong teaching. But it's worth noting that research-intensive Group of Eight institutions sometimes prioritise research over teaching, and that tension exists across the Group of Eight, not just at ANU. It's something to think about when deciding what kind of classroom experience you want.

On graduate employment, 80.7% of ANU graduates are in full-time employment within four months of finishing their degree. That's decent and above the national average, but it's not the highest. Charles Sturt University is at 91%, James Cook University at 89.1%, but these are regional universities where demand for skilled graduates is especially high. Within the Group of Eight, ANU sits roughly in the middle, behind Monash at 82% and level with the University of Queensland at 81%.

Graduate salaries and global rankings

The graduate starting salary figure is interesting. ANU graduates report a median salary of $72,000, which is among the highest in the Group of Eight. The University of Melbourne, by contrast, is at $65,300, and the University of Sydney is at $70,000. So why is ANU's number so strong? The answer is Canberra. The public service employs a large proportion of ANU graduates, and Commonwealth government salaries tend to start higher than private-sector entry-level positions in the cities. That's a genuine advantage, but it's partly about where you end up working, not just where you studied, so take it with a grain of salt.

Now, the global rankings. ANU ranks 32nd in the world on the QS Global Rankings, which puts it fourth in Australia. Times Higher Education has them at 73rd globally, still in the top hundred institutions, and also fourth in Australia. Back in 2016, ANU was basically number one in Australia and ranked 19th in the world, so the trajectory on those big global rankings has been on a downward trend. The university has acknowledged this and largely attributes the slide to size. Ranking systems partly measure total research output and volume, so big universities with more graduates and more research have a structural advantage. It doesn't mean ANU has gotten worse. It just reflects the fact that measurement favours scale.

Universities to compare ANU against

Here are three institutions I would look at alongside ANU. The first is the obvious geographical comparison: the University of Canberra. It's more career-focused, more applied, and it scores really well on graduate employment at 85%, higher than ANU in fact. So if you want to be in Canberra but you're less drawn to that research-intensive, highly academic culture, UC is definitely worth a look. Totally different vibe, different strengths, same city.

The second is the University of Melbourne, the prestige comparison that most high-achieving students might already be making. Both ANU and Melbourne are prestigious, research-intensive Group of Eight institutions. The big difference, as I explained earlier, is the Melbourne Model: a broad undergraduate degree followed by postgraduate specialisation, versus ANU's direct entry and flexible double degree approach. If you already know what you want to study and want to get into it straight away, ANU's model suits you. If you're not sure and you want to explore broadly before committing to a career path, Melbourne's model is designed explicitly for that. It's a genuine difference in philosophies of education, not just campuses. And of course, Melbourne being on the outskirts of the city centre is going to offer a more lively urban experience, though whether that's better depends entirely on you.

My third choice is a curveball: Bond University up in south-east Queensland on the Gold Coast. Bond is a tiny private institution and it's expensive. ANU is small by Group of Eight standards, public, and in Canberra. These are very different places. But what they share is a deliberate choice to be small so that students get to know their academics and their classmates better. Bond has the highest student satisfaction in the country at 88.3%, and ANU has the most satisfied students of the Group of Eight. So if small and personal is a non-negotiable for you, Bond and ANU deserve to be on the same shortlist, even though a lot of everything else is different about them. It's also worth noting that people move from all over Australia to go to ANU, and around a third of students at Bond move from interstate as well. Both institutions draw students nationally.

Answering your questions: residential colleges at ANU

We've got time for one pre-submitted question. From Mel in Sydney: "I've heard ANU has a residential college system. Is it worth the extra cost compared to just renting a share house in Canberra?"

ANU has an incredibly strong on-campus college system. They've really built this up over recent years, and the idea is to get you into that college environment where you've got a built-in social life, academic support, and a real sense of community from day one. Yes, living on campus can cost more than living in a share house. But in that first year, if you're new to Canberra and you just want to be close to people and build your network, this is absolutely worth the investment. Lots of students will move off campus after the first year once they've built friendship groups and gotten themselves established. But for that first year, being in the heart of the action has a definite advantage.

I didn't always think that, to be honest. I used to think living on campus was a bit of a waste and had that picture of the American college experience you see in the movies. The reality is much more considered, much more collegial, much more friendship-based. There really is something for everybody in the on-campus environment. ANU is one of the stronger institutions in Australia for that on-campus first-year experience, and it's definitely worth a look.

It's been great talking to you about ANU at this session, and I look forward to seeing you throughout the National Virtual Expo. Thanks for joining me. Have yourself an awesome day.