ACER Scholarship Timeline: When to Apply, and What to Do When

The cycle, start to finish

ACER's co-operative scholarship test runs on a fixed annual cycle. Victorian schools sit with Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia; South Australian schools test on a separate, earlier date.

• Late September — applications openRegistration opens for the following February's test.
• Early February — applications closeUsually the first week of the month, and it is a hard deadline.
• Late February — test dayHeld on a Saturday.
• From around mid-year — offersSchools assess results and make scholarship offers on their own timelines.
• The following January — entrySuccessful students start at the school.

The lead time is longer than most families expect

You apply roughly sixteen months before your child would start. As a worked example: for 2028 entry at Victorian schools, applications open on 21 September 2026, close on 7 February 2027, and the test is held on 27 February 2027.

That means a family thinking about scholarships for a 2028 start needs to act in September 2026 — not partway through 2027, which is when it intuitively feels urgent. Missing the window means waiting a full year, because there is only one sitting per cycle.

Dates shift slightly each year. Always confirm the current cycle on ACER's own site before planning around them.

What to do at each stage

• Before applications openShortlist schools and read each one's scholarship page — schools differ in what they offer, which year levels they award at, and how much of the fee a scholarship covers.
• September to DecemberRegister, then get a baseline. One full timed test per subject tells you whether the gap is accuracy, speed, or one weak subject — each needs a different response.
• December to FebruaryTimed practice, then full exam-condition rehearsals in the final month. Stamina across a long paper is its own skill and needs rehearsing.
• The final weekTaper. No new material — consolidate what's already there and protect sleep.

How registration actually works

You register through ACER's online portal rather than with the school directly, but the fee is set by each school rather than by ACER. Register well before the closing date — some schools set their own earlier deadline, and a school's own cut-off overrides the general one.

ACER runs this as a co-operative program, which means one sitting can be considered by more than one participating school. Check exactly which schools your registration covers when you apply, because it depends on the schools you nominate rather than being automatic.

Preparing for the test

The scholarship exam rewards reasoning under time pressure more than taught content, and the reasoning sections are not directly taught at school — which is usually where the largest, cheapest improvement sits.

Mocky generates a fresh mock test every time rather than drawing from a fixed bank, so your child can practise repeatedly across the whole September-to-February window without ever repeating a question.