Results 

A total of 176 applications were received in 2021 (complete and incomplete). This is marginally higher than the 172 that were received in 2020. 

Of the applications: 

• 72 completed (vs. 79 in 2020) 

• 70 students were eligible for the scholarship (vs. 72 in 2020) 

• 12 were interviewed in November 2021, 2 in January 2022 

• 7 students were offered and accepted their scholarships 

Application Shortlisting 

• The application shortlisting process begins with an assessment by the Student Support and Wellness Officer of the Law School. They work closely with UQ Admissions to access, and remain up to date with, the applicants’ QTAC Educational Access Scheme (‘EAS’) rankings. It is on this basis that we assess applicants’ financial hardship status in order to shortlist them for an interview. 

• Where there are potential issues for the applicant to complete their EAS application to QTAC (such as access to financial documentation from their parents), we often provide them with the benefit of the doubt, and if supported by other information that they have provided through their written application, we determine whether they meet the other criteria, to merit an interview to proceed to the next stage of assessment. 

• It is our understanding that our assessment of financial hardship and reliance on QTAC’s EAS rankings is stricter than for other financial hardship-based scholarships within the wider UQ scholarship awards system, particularly because our applicants are recent school leavers and we can leverage QTAC’s assessment in this way. 

Gap-year Student Applicants 

In their current form, the rules of the LEAD Scholarship do not allow for a recent schooler, who has taken a gap year, to apply for the Scholarship. To be eligible, the rules specify that the applicant must be completing their final year of study, in the year of their application. In recent years we have identified, mostly through student feedback, that this eligibility requirement may in fact be an undesirable barrier for otherwise worthy candidates. We would be open to exploring the possibility of removing this restriction if it aligned with the consensus of the UQeF.