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Understanding honours
- Overview and types of honours
- Eligibility and preparing for honours
- Honours awards and classes
Eligibility and preparing for honours
To be eligible for honours, you’ll need to have a strong academic record, with a minimum weighted average mark (WAM) of 65 to 75 percent depending on the type of honours you intend to complete. This is automatically checked when we process your application.
You may also need to show that you have the ability to conduct high-quality academic research by preparing a research proposal.
If you want to apply for honours, it’s important to plan ahead. Many appended honours degrees have prerequisite units of study that you need to complete during your undergraduate degree. Embedded honours units of study are integrated into the latter semesters of your undergraduate degree, often replacing electives, so you need to plan your units of study to accommodate this.
If you are showing strong academic performance early in your degree, your faculty or school may invite you to consider undertaking honours. They will outline the preparation units of study you will need to complete.
Eligibility criteria for each honours option is listed in the information on the following discipline pages.
Entry to honours is competitive. Places are often limited and depend on supervisors being available. This means entry to honours is not guaranteed by meeting the eligibility criteria, and may require a higher WAM.
Eligibility for exchange students
If you plan to go on exchange and want to apply for honours, you should first discuss this with the honours coordinator in your faculty or school.
Many types of honours have prerequisite units of study that you need to complete during your qualifying degree. You need to ensure you can complete these units of study before or after your exchange, or confirm there are equivalent units of study you can complete during your exchange program.
Your results are used to calculate your WAM for entry. If you go on exchange, there may be delays in receiving your results, and this could prevent your application from being assessed.
Preparing to apply
The way you apply for honours will depend on your faculty/school and the type of honours you want to complete. Generally, to apply for honours you will first need to choose a research topic for your honours study and may need to arrange a supervisor. Check our Applying for honours page for more information about how to apply for the type of honours you choose.
Fees for honours
The fees you pay for your honours study will depend on the degree you are enrolled in and the type of honours you undertake.
If you enrol in a degree with embedded or integrated honours, the honours fees are already included in the fee for your degree.
If you enrol in stand alone or appended honours, you can find out more about the fees payable in Find a course. If your application is accepted, your fees will be confirmed in your offer letter from the University.
Commonwealth supported students who commenced their studies before 1 January 2021
The Australian Government’s Job-ready Graduates program made changes to fees for CSP students who commence a new course of study from 1 January 2021. Under the package, some students are 'grandfathered students', meaning they continue to pay their original fee rate. If you transfer to a new course to do honours, you may not be grandfathered and may be charged the new fee rates for honours. Read our page on the Job-ready Graduates Package for more information about the changes.
Scholarships
Some scholarships are available for honours students. Information on honours scholarships can be found on our scholarships website.
Last updated: 23 March 2023
