Ngā tohutohu whakauru me ngā kupu āwhina

Enrolment help and advice

Find out how to get course advice, and what to do if you’ve been declined admission, been put on a waitlist for a course, or are having problems applying.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you to Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. We're here to support you, so get in touch if you want advice or need help.

We’ve also prepared some suggestions for queries you might have, including:

Figuring out what to study

Our Future Students team are available to help you if you need help deciding which programme is right for you, or which courses to take. You can get in touch with them to ask questions or book a course planning appointment.

We also have some guides and videos about how undergraduate degrees work and what we mean by courses, points, majors, and minors.

And you might want to look at our recommendations for subjects to study at school before you come to university.

Getting admission to the University

To become a student at the University you'll need to meet our admission requirements, which are based on your previous qualifications and results.

If you haven't quite met the requirements—or if you've applied and been declined admission—there are a number of options. These include:

  • Reviewing and/or getting your NCEA results reconsidered.
  • Doing extra credits through your school or through Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu—The Correspondence School.
  • Doing a one-year, pre-degree preparation programme at the University or another tertiary institution.
  • Taking a gap year and applying for Special Admission once you're 20 years of age or older.

Find out more about what to do if you've been declined admission.

Getting into the courses you want

Almost all of our undergraduate degrees are 'open entry', which means that you'll automatically be accepted into the first year if you have qualified for admission to the University by the University Entrance route.

You may not be successful in getting into all of the individual courses that you wanted to enrol in. This may be because:

  • You applied for a limited entry course, but weren't selected.
  • You haven't met the prerequisites (entry requirements) for a course. For example, there might be an audition or you might need to have achieved NCEA credits in a specific subject.
  • You haven’t done the prerequisite university course(s). For example, most 200-level (second year) courses build on a 100-level (first year) course in the same subject.

You may be placed on a waitlist for some courses if you have applied after the deadline or if you applied for a course that is already full. If places become available in your selected course(s), one will be offered to you.

Email info@vuw.ac.nz to discuss the status of your declined or waitlisted courses.

Logging into the Pūaha portal

Pūaha is an online portal where you can manage all of your applications in one place. Pūaha uses a Microsoft log in system, so if you use other Microsoft programmes you may need to log out of them first, or use an incognito (private) browsing window.

New student

If you're new to the University, you can quickly create an account. Make a note of the email address and password you used—and don't use an email address issued by your school as it may expire before you finish enrolling.

Current student

If you're currently a student at the University, you'll be able to log into Pūaha using your student (@myvuw.ac.nz) email account. If you sign up with a different email address, the portal won't know that you're eligible to enrol in courses (or may not be able to log you in).

Returning student

If you've taken a few years away from the University, you may need to re-activate your account. Find out what to do if you can't sign in.

University staff

If you're a staff member applying to study at the University, you'll need to create a new personal account.

Using our enrolment system

We're making changes to our enrolment system to provide you with a better experience. In the meantime, you can find out what to do for some common problems on our enrolment issues page.

Find out how to solve common problems.