Christmas has come early for more than 40,000 graduating year 12 students, who received offers to study their chosen university degree or TAFE course in Victoria.
About 40,595 offers were emailed by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre on Wednesday, with the vast majority of students being offered their first or second study preference.
Science, arts, business, commerce, biomedical science and engineering were among the top courses, and account for about 20 per cent of December offers.
Victorian Education Minister Natalie Hutchins congratulated those who received a first-round offer.
"Today's first round offers represent the outcome of years of hard work for students and I would encourage them to apply themselves in the same way to their future endeavours," Ms Hutchins said.
Admissions centre chief executive Teresa Tjia said it was an exciting milestone for year 12 graduates, who could start planning for 2023.
It marks the first time since 2019 a December offer round has been possible after exam results were previously delayed due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021.
The number of students who received a December offer this year was higher than in 2019 (36,004).
About 55 per cent of offers went to female students compared with 44 per cent to males.
It comes one week after nearly 65,000 graduates received their Victorian certificate of education scores and Australian tertiary admission ranks.
Further offers will be issued throughout January and February, including for some courses which did not make any offers on Wednesday, such as medicine.
More than 70 free TAFE courses will be made available next year across early childhood education, health, construction and infrastructure, agriculture, hospitality, and community and disability services.
The Victorian government has pledged $170 million to towards building new TAFE campuses and improvements to existing ones.
More than 125,000 Victorians have signed up for free TAFE courses since 2019.
