Welcome and session overview

G'day, welcome to the Choosing Your Uni Virtual Expo. I'm your host, Rob Malicki, and welcome to this session on the University of Melbourne. It's a big one. Before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I stand right now.

Let me tell you what's coming up in the next 20 minutes. For those joining me live on the live stream, thanks so much for being here. You can ask questions in the chat. And if you're watching this on the replay, here are the topics we're going to be going through. Firstly, what is the University of Melbourne known for, and who does well studying there? We'll hear from students who are studying there, and we'll look at the academic strengths. Then we're going to get into the hard data: student satisfaction, employment, salary, rankings. And I'm going to be really straight with you about what those numbers actually mean for you. We're going to get behind the hype. At the end, I'm going to tell you which universities I would actually consider if I were considering the University of Melbourne, just to help you build your shortlist.

If you're watching live, drop your questions in the chat and we'll try to get to them at the end. If you're watching on the replay, you can jump into the Choosing Your Uni Discord. You'll find the link in the description below. That's where you can have all your general questions answered. And parents, we've also got a dedicated Facebook community just for you. You'll find that in the session details below.

The surprising employment figure and what it tells you about Melbourne

Here's a number that surprises people about the University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne has a graduate employment rate of 67.7%. That's the lowest of any of the Group of Eight universities in the country. And yet Melbourne is ranked number one in Australia and 19th in the world. So what's going on? How can those two things be true? I'm going to explain that contradiction in just a minute, because it actually tells you everything about what Melbourne is and who it's for.

This uni is probably not for you if you want to finish a professional qualification as fast as possible and then start working. Melbourne doesn't offer undergraduate law. You do a three-year bachelor's degree first and then a graduate professional degree on top, which takes longer and costs more. That's deliberate, not an accident. It's also probably not for you if you want a small, intimate campus where everybody knows your name. Melbourne has over 77,000 students. It's a big, busy, ambitious place. And it's probably not for you if you're chasing the cheapest path through university, particularly if you're an international student. However, if none of that has scared you off, stay with me.

What students say about studying at Melbourne

Before I tell you what I think, let's hear from some students who've actually studied there.

"So I'm a first-year student and so is Lizzie because she's my friend. So far I think it's very much like a melting pot. The content in my major is great. I'm really happy with my major in anthropology, and I'm very happy with the teachers and the faculty here. And the friends I've made here from different cultures. I'm representing the French club here but I'm not French. Representation is a big thing."

That's one perspective, but everyone's experience is different. If you've got questions about Melbourne or about uni in general, make sure you drop them in the chat.

The Melbourne Model: broad undergraduate education and professional graduate degrees

Let me give you three things that define this uni. Firstly, the Melbourne Model. This is the big one. Back in 2008, Melbourne overhauled its entire degree structure. Instead of letting you jump straight into law or medicine or engineering from high school, they moved into what they call a three-plus-two-plus-three system. You do a three-year undergraduate degree, something broad like arts, science, commerce, or design. Then if you want a professional qualification, you do that on top via a master's degree, and a doctorate after that if you want to go further.

Why does this matter? Because it means your undergraduate degree at Melbourne is deliberately broad. You're required to take what are called breadth subjects: units outside your main area of study. So a science student might take philosophy, and a commerce student might take music. The idea is that you don't just become a specialist, but someone who can think across different fields. Now, not everybody loves this. If you already know at 17 that you want to be a lawyer, doing a three-year arts degree first can feel like a detour. At most other strong universities, including some really good ones, you can enter law or medicine directly from high school. However, the University of Melbourne made a conscious decision to go the other way. It's modelled on the approach you see at top universities in the US and in Europe, and it's genuinely unusual in Australia. You need to decide if that structure suits you.

If you're thinking about the cost, and you should be, the Australian Government's support for university studies covers how HECS-HELP works in detail, including what changes when you're doing a longer pathway. That's relevant for essentially all domestic students. And for international students, doing multiple degrees has an immediate impact on your finances.

Research intensity and academic strengths

Second: research intensity. The University of Melbourne has over 100 research centres and institutes. It has the second-highest research expenditure of any institution in the entire country, second only to the CSIRO.

It's a very, very long list of strengths. Melbourne has 14 subject areas ranked in the global top 20. That's more than any other Australian university. Its law school, Melbourne Law School, is ranked number eight in the world. Education, medical and health sciences, engineering, and the social sciences are all globally recognised. The nine faculties cover essentially everything: law, medicine, science, engineering, arts, business and economics, architecture, fine arts and music, and education. With more than 400 graduate programs across 18 graduate schools, the range at postgraduate level is absolutely enormous.

One thing that's distinctive about Melbourne is that breadth requirement in the undergraduate degree. A student studying biomedicine might take a subject in urban design, and someone in commerce might study Indigenous history. The university genuinely believes this makes you a better thinker, and employers tend to agree. Melbourne is ranked eighth in the world for graduate employability.

On the research side, the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct is an absolute standout. It's a cluster of hospitals, research centres, and university facilities all within walking distance of each other. This is particularly interesting if you're interested in cancer research, neuroscience, genomics, or public health. It's one of the most concentrated research environments you can find anywhere. Melbourne Connect is the university's newest innovation precinct, focused on technology, AI, and industry collaboration. And there's a major new campus being developed at Fishermans Bend for engineering and design. This is a university that's still growing its physical footprint.

Campus life, clubs, and navigating a large university

Student life is shaped by scale. There are over 200 clubs and societies and students from more than 130 countries, which gives the campus a really diverse flavour. A strong student union is a tradition at the University of Melbourne. It's not a place where you'll feel like a number if you do engage, but you do need to put yourself out there. Big universities reward people who seek things out.

Here's another student with their take on what it's like to study at the University of Melbourne.

"It's definitely got its advantages. It's not a bad place to be. It can be a bit of a labyrinth sometimes. It's massive. I still get lost and I've been here for four years. I'd say it's a good place to be if you can navigate it, and learning to navigate it means getting tips from others. For me, it's about having access to other people and other minds that are really passionate about what they do, that know a lot and have experience and expertise. But at the same time, these minds can be hard to find, because the university can be sort of alienating."

Everyone's experience at a university of this size is going to be different. That's just part of the deal.

Graduate degree packages and scholarships

Melbourne also offers something called graduate degree packages. You can actually secure a place in a graduate professional program, like the Juris Doctor for law or the Doctor of Medicine, before you even start your undergraduate degree. So if one of the things you're worried about with the Melbourne Model is that professional pathway, and making sure you can get in, this particular pathway lets you lock in that professional goal upfront while still getting a broad undergraduate education.

There are over 1,200 scholarships and prizes available from the University of Melbourne, including the Norm scholarship for students from equity backgrounds. For international students, there are scholarships offering between 25% and 100% tuition fee remission. There is money there to help students, but you have to look for it.

The data: satisfaction, employment, salary, and rankings

The numbers with Melbourne tell a genuinely complex story. Student satisfaction is at 73.8%. That comes from the QILT, which is a national student survey system. 73.8% is quite low compared against the national average. Large research-intensive universities tend to score lower on satisfaction surveys everywhere in the world. The teaching is often pitched at a very high level, class sizes can be large in the early years, and the student support structures don't always feel personal. It's a pattern you see across the entire Group of Eight. Melbourne's academics are amongst the most credentialled in the entire country, but the student experience of teaching, especially in first year, doesn't always match the institution's reputation.

Now let's look at graduate employment, and here's where that 67.7% figure comes in. That's the rate of graduates in full-time employment four months after finishing, and it's genuinely low. Charles Sturt University, by comparison, sits at 91.2%. James Cook is at 89.5%. So what's happening? Well, it's two things. First, the Melbourne Model means many graduates finish a three-year undergraduate degree and then go straight on to further study. They're not in the workforce four months later because they're still at university. Second, Melbourne graduates tend to be more selective about the roles they accept. They're often holding out for graduate programs at top-tier firms rather than taking the first job available. Three years after graduation, 91% are employed full time, so the short-term number doesn't capture the full picture.

Median starting salary is $65,300. Again, that's lower than many regional universities. The University of Southern Queensland's median salary is $80,000. University of Tasmania is $78,000. Why? Because those universities produce a lot of graduates in nursing, education, and allied health professions with immediate structured employment and standardised salaries. Melbourne produces more graduates in arts, humanities, and social sciences, where early career salaries often start lower and grow significantly over time.

On rankings, the University of Melbourne is ranked 19th in the world by QS and 37th by the Times Higher Education. It's first in Australia on both of those rankings, and that's genuine. But rankings measure lots of things that aren't necessarily relevant to you, such as research output, academic reputation, and citation impact. They don't measure what your classroom experience will be like, so you really need to keep that in mind.

How Melbourne compares with Monash, Sydney, and the ANU

If I were making this decision, I wouldn't evaluate Melbourne in isolation. Let me make a few comparisons.

The first comparison is perhaps the most obvious: Melbourne versus Monash University. This is the one that most students considering Melbourne are already probably weighing up. Monash is also a Group of Eight university. It's also in Melbourne and it's also extremely well ranked, at 36th in the world by QS. But at Monash you can enter professional degrees directly from high school. You can start a law degree, an engineering degree, or a pharmacy degree right in first year. So if the Melbourne Model feels like a detour, Monash gives you a direct route at a comparable level of prestige. Student satisfaction at Monash is 73.1%, which is still similar to Melbourne, and graduate employment is 82%, which is significantly higher. You can watch the Monash session, and you'll find the details in the session listings below.

The second comparison is the University of Sydney, which is the nearest university in terms of profile and ambition. It's ranked 25th in the world by QS. It's the oldest university in Australia, the way Melbourne is the second oldest. Sydney does offer direct entry to professional degrees, which gives you a different structural experience. And it's in Sydney, which is a different city with a different feel but similarly high cost of living. If prestige and breadth of options are what you're after, Sydney is to me the natural interstate comparison. You can watch a session on Sydney as part of this expo.

Third, and this is the one that might surprise you: the Australian National University. The ANU is ranked 32nd in the world and it's in Canberra, of course. As the national university, it's smaller and it has a campus culture that's much more contained and community-focused. If you're drawn to academic rigour and intellectual breadth but you want a place where you're not just a number amongst 77,000, the ANU offers you something genuinely different. Student satisfaction at the ANU is 79.4%, which is well above Melbourne's. We've got a session on the ANU as well, and if you've got specific questions about any of these universities, the Choosing Your Uni Discord is there for students, and the Facebook community is there for parents.

Listener questions: the Melbourne Model cost and the ATAR in perspective

Before we wrap up, let me get to a couple of questions that came in from pre-registered participants ahead of this session. The first is from Priya, who asks: if I do a three-year bachelor's at Melbourne and then a two-year master's, does that mean I'm paying for five years of university instead of four?

The answer is yes. Broadly speaking, the Melbourne Model does mean more years of study for many professional pathways. That of course means more time paying for accommodation and study costs. Domestic students can access HECS-HELP, which is the Australian Government scheme where you don't pay for tuition upfront but pay it back through the tax system once you're earning over a certain threshold. The University of Melbourne argues that a broader undergraduate education followed by a specialist graduate degree together produce a better outcome. Personally, I actually agree with that. In a world where AI is becoming such an important part of the workplace, the ability to think broadly is becoming more important than ever.

The second question was: how much does the ATAR really matter in the long run? Your ATAR, your Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank, is a percentile ranking that compares you against other Year 12 students. It matters for getting in the door. A higher ATAR opens more doors and a lower one closes some. But once you're at university, nobody, as in nobody, will ever ask you about your ATAR ever again. Your grades, your experiences, your networks, and your ability to actually do the work are what determine what comes next. The ATAR is a bit like a sorting tool that helps get you through some doors and might stop others from opening, but it's not a life sentence and it's definitely not your destiny. There are many ways to get into any option you're interested in, so even if you don't achieve the ATAR you're hoping for, it doesn't mean you won't be able to get into that programme eventually. There are plenty of different options: transfer pathways, mature-age entry, all of which get people to exactly the same place in the long run.

Wrap-up and recommended sessions

That concludes our session on the University of Melbourne. Remember, the Virtual Expo is on all week. Every session is available not only live but also on demand, and you'll find the full schedule in the Expo hub. The details are below.

I'd like to flag a couple of sessions specifically. If you haven't yet watched "Getting Started with Choosing a University," that's the one that walks you through the whole process of choosing a university from scratch. We've also got a great session from the Australian Government on funding and support for domestic students, and I think you'll find that one of the most practical and useful sessions of the entire week. Don't skip that one.

If you haven't already, check out the Choosing Your Uni YouTube channel. We've done independent reviews on every single university in Australia. The Choosing Your Uni platform is free to use, built to help guide you to the fields of study and the degrees that line up best with you. It takes about a minute to sign up and it's free. You'll find all the details below. And remember, any questions: the Choosing Your Uni Discord is the place to go for independent advice from real people with no sales pitch. Thanks for joining me for this session on the University of Melbourne. I'll see you later.