Charles Darwin University

📚 Courses & programs at Charles Darwin University

Charles Darwin University is best known for Nursing & Health, Engineering, Trades & Vocational, Education. Popular programs for international students include:

• Engineering
• Health Sciences
• Business
• Education
• Nursing
• IT
• Trades

Class profile: 8,353 students; 2,319 international from 90+ countries; diverse enrollment.

✅ Entry requirements

💰 Fees & cost of studying

Plan your budget for tuition + living + health insurance + the visa fee. Compare funding with the free scholarship finder.

📝 Step-by-step admission process

1. Choose Feb or Jul intake
2. Meet IELTS 6.5; prepare SOP, CV, transcripts
3. Apply via portal or agent (rolling)
4. Receive offer → accept & pay deposit
5. Get CoE (Confirmation of Enrolment)
6. Apply for Subclass 500 student visa

📄 Documents checklist

• Transcripts
• Statement of Purpose
• CV
• IELTS / TOEFL / PTE
• Passport
• Financial proof
• GTE statement
• CoE

🛂 Student visa & post-study work · Australia

• Student visa: Student visa (Subclass 500)
• Work while studying: 48 hrs/fortnight during term
• Post-study work: Temporary Graduate visa (485): 2–4 years

📅 Intakes & deadlines

All figures are indicative and change year to year — always confirm on the official site (www.cdu.edu.au) before applying.

How Charles Darwin University compares in Australia

The figures on this page mean little on their own. Set against the 26 other Australia universities in our dataset, they say something more useful about where an application to Charles Darwin University is likely to be won or lost.

• Selectivity. An indicative acceptance rate of about 70% against a median of 62% across the 26 other Australia universities in our dataset. 22 of them are harder to get into than Charles Darwin University. It sits on the more accessible side of its national peer group, which usually means a complete, early, well-matched application matters more than an exceptional one.
• Rank in context. QS #584, against a peer median of #189; 25 Australia universities rank above it here. Rank is worth exactly this much and no more — it is driven by institution-wide research output and reputation surveys, not by the department you would actually join, so treat it as a coarse filter and judge the programme on its own page.
• English bar. IELTS 6 against a peer median of 6.5. That is below the national norm, which makes it a low-risk gate here, but the same score may not clear the universities you are applying to alongside it. Prepare to the highest bar on your list, not this one. Equivalents: TOEFL 79, PTE 58.

Programme areas: Engineering · Health Sciences · Business · Education · Nursing · IT · Trades. Entry requirements are set per programme, not per university, so the figures above are the institutional baseline — a competitive department inside an accessible university can run far tighter than the headline rate suggests.

Practical order of work for Charles Darwin University: clear the English requirement first, because it gates everything and is the only part of the application you fully control; then confirm which of the February and July intakes you are targeting, since the typical deadline is Rolling and funding decisions usually close before admission decisions; then build the application around one specific programme rather than the institution. Budget the application fee of $0 per programme, and living costs of AUD 21,000/yr (visa requirement) on top of tuition of ~$20k/yr (AUD $18.52k-34k range).

Figures here are indicative and compiled for comparison. Acceptance rates in particular are institution-level estimates and move year to year — confirm anything you are deciding on against the university's official pages.