911 applications, 85 accepted for 2013 first-year intake of Deakin Optometry’s course

The entrance standard of the 2013 intake of first year students was even higher than that of the 2012 intake.
Furthermore, in keeping with its charter, bonus ‘points’ were given for ‘regionality’, pertaining to a group with a low socio-economic status, or being disadvantaged in some determinable way.
The new 2013 intake is 67% fale and 61% of the cohort are from a metropolitan area, which Professor Harrison Weisinger, foundation director of optometry and chair in optometry at Deakin, is in line with the dand for optometrists increasing because of the current maldistribution of practitioners, the ageing population, the rising prevalence of diabetes, increasing awareness of optometrical services, the expanding scope of modern optometric practice, and an improving awareness of the importance of eye health in general.
It is interesting and relevant to Deakin Optometry’s goals that Deakin University has ‘Worldly’ as its descriptor which is not far roved from Queensland University of Technology’s ‘a university for the real world’. Both have institutes of technology in their history – Gordon Institute of Technology merged with the State College of Victoria at Geelong to form Deakin University (1977) and QUT (1989) grew out of QIT (1965).