My family went to Australia over the summer to give our eldest son the chance to do Australian university tours. He is now in his last year in High School so we are at this parenting phase when we need to prepare for our son’s University studies. Australia is not his first choice but we are providing him this option for practical reasons.
For one, it is near the Philippines. Family is important and as much as possible, we want to have the proximity so he is easily accessible to us and we are accessible to him. It is an 8-hour flight to the Philippines and less when coming to and from Jakarta.
Second, Australia has good universities that are competitive in global rankings. After attending an educational fair in Jakarta where our son checked some Australian universities, he decided he wanted to check out the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. After consulting an agent at the educational fair, he decided he was not interested in further checking the University of Melbourne. So, we have narrowed down our University searches geographically.
University of Sydney (USyd)
The University of Sydney is in 18th place in the QS World University Rankings 2025. This was the first university we went to. If you plan to visit the University of Sydney, please know that they only have a once-a-month guided tour. This happens only every first Friday of the month.
Knowing this, I scheduled our trip to Sydney to accommodate a first Friday schedule. It’s pretty easy to get a schedule. Just go to the university’s website and look for Campus Tour.
You can check out our tour of the university in the video below:
University of New South Wales (UNSW)
The University of New South Wales comes in 19th place in the QS World University Rankings 2025. UNSW conducts guided university tours every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month. There are morning and afternoon sessions so you have more options. You can also register for a campus tour ahead so you can properly plan out your stay in Sydney.
As we were going to the university, we see a lot of spaces for an active lifestyle. There are bike lanes and soccer fields along the road. The university is also nearer to the beaches. So, aside from the campus tour, we also scheduled a walk along the beaches. You can check out the video below our tour of UNSW and our long walk along the coastline.
Australian National University (ANU)
Since we were just two hours away from Canberra, we also decided to check out the Australian National University. ANU is the 30th in the QS World University Rankings 2025. The campus tours here are more flexible. There are weekday and Saturday campus tours. Just check their campus tour schedule and register. You can see in the video below a glimpse of ANU.
If you are staying in Sydney like we did, it is important to consider your budget going to Canberra. We didn’t have enough time so we could not opt for a relatively cheaper train to go to Canberra. We only had to do a day trip so we got a car service that included a driver. If we convert to Philippine peso, our day trip was around Php40,000. It’s quite steep but we know Australia is not cheap. All things considered, we decided to go for it. I am just laying it down here for your consideration when you go for university hopping like we did.
Australia has more good universities to consider. I have only included these three universities because they are the only ones we have shortlisted.
To future families or students considering Australia for university studies, I hope this helps.
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Ang daming University na magaganda diyan Sa Australia and Good Thing is naghahanap or nagprepare din Kayo ng maaga at saya saya Din Na Trip din ito,Ms.wend
Best experience po hindi lang ng kids pati ng parents natin ang maka makapag university tours lalo na sa mga kilala school katulad po niyan sobrang ganda pa po and lawak ng school.
Wow ang ganda po nito at may pa tour sila and kasama pa mga parents tiyak na makikita talaga kung gaano kaganda ung university and also kung safe ba. Thanks for sharing this po.