QASMT Year 7 entry: the complete parent guide

The Queensland Academy for Science, Mathematics and Technology is the only Queensland Academy that takes students at Year 7, and you apply while your child is in Year 5. For the 2028 intake, applications closed at 4pm on Friday 21 August 2026 and the Entrance Test was held on 5 and 6 September 2026.

If you are reading this in September 2026 with a Year 4 child, you are in exactly the right place at the right time. The next on-time window opens roughly twelve months from now, and preparation from here is unhurried rather than frantic.

What is QASMT?

QASMT is an academically selective Queensland state school in Toowong that runs the International Baccalaureate from Year 7 through to Year 12. Students study the IB Middle Years Programme in Years 7 to 9 and continue into the IB Diploma Programme in Years 10 to 12.

There are three Queensland Academies. QASMT takes students at Year 7 and Year 10. QACI, in Kelvin Grove, and QAHS, on the Gold Coast, take students at Year 10 only. Queensland Academies state that Year 7 is the entry point for enrolment into QASMT and that the application process is designed to be undertaken when students are in Year 5.

When do you apply for QASMT?

In Year 5, before the on-time applications close date. Late applications can be submitted after that, during Year 5 and for a limited period in Year 6, but they are considered only for vacancies that may arise.

The on-time period is the only one with scheduled open, close and Entrance Test dates and a published notice-of-outcome window. Everything else is contingent.

Those dates come from the Queensland Academies Year 7 enrolments page, checked on 10 September 2026. Dates move every cycle, so confirm the current round before you plan around anything here.

Is the QASMT test one day or two?

One sitting, on one of two published dates. Queensland Academies list the testing day as "5-6 September 2026", and the footnote to that entry states your child will be scheduled to sit on either Saturday 5 September or Sunday 6 September through an automatic scheduling process.

This is worth being precise about, because several preparation sites describe the QASMT Entrance Test as running "over two consecutive days". It does not. Your child sits approximately three hours, once. What the two dates mean in practice is that you must keep your child free on both, because the Academies state they cannot accommodate requests for a preferred test date or session.

How much does it cost to apply to QASMT?

The on-time application fee for Year 7 in 2028 was $270.00 and it is non-refundable. A separate late application fee of $300.00, also non-refundable, applies during the late window.

The Academies' refund policy is unusually explicit and worth reading before you pay. Fees are not refunded where an application is withdrawn, submitted with incorrect information, unsuccessful, submitted in error or for the wrong program, or submitted for a candidate who was never eligible. Remote online testing carries an additional fee charged by Edutest.

What does QASMT actually assess?

Four things, and the Entrance Test is only one of them. The Academies list the Entrance Test, analysis of school reports and other academic performance data such as NAPLAN, an engagement activity for shortlisted candidates, and review of additional relevant information.

No weighting is published for any of them, and no cut-off score is published either.

The engagement activity replaced what used to be a straightforward interview. The Academies note that in 2025 and prior, the engagement activity was an interview by members of the Academy collegiate. Shortlisted Year 5 and Year 6 candidates are also given a Letter of Recommendation form for their primary school principal or delegate to complete.

The stage families underestimate is not the test. It is what comes after it.

Parents put months into the Entrance Test, get the invitation to the engagement activity, and treat that as the finish line. It is not. Being invited means your child is now being compared with hundreds of other children who also did well on the test, many of whom have prepared for this stage too. At that point the test has already done its job of narrowing the field. What separates candidates is how they come across in the room.

The thing that hurts children here is wooden answers. Short replies, nothing behind them, no sense of a person who is actually interested in anything. That is not a reflection of ability, it is a reflection of a child who has never been asked to talk about their own thinking out loud and is doing it for the first time in front of strangers. It is completely fixable, and it is why parents have asked us for interview preparation separately from test preparation.

If your child gets an invitation, spend some of the remaining time on this. Have them talk about a piece of work they are proud of, out loud, to an adult who is not you, until it stops feeling strange.

How competitive is QASMT Year 7 entry?

Nobody outside the school knows, because the Academies do not publish it. There is no published number of Year 7 places, no applicant count, no acceptance rate and no applicant-to-place ratio.

What they do publish is a sentence: the number of highly capable candidates seeking enrolment typically exceeds the number of places available. That is the school's own description of the competition and it is as specific as the official record gets.

The one hard figure in the public record sits in the Queensland Department of Education's enrolment eligibility plan, which states that QASMT has an agreed student enrolment capacity of 1,480 students. Read that carefully before you do any arithmetic with it. It is a whole-school capacity across Years 7 to 12, not an intake number, and it tells you nothing about how many Year 7 places open in a given year.

You can do arithmetic with the 1,480 figure. We would not rely on it, and it is worth showing you why rather than leaving you to try it yourself.

Divide 1,480 by six year levels and you get roughly 245 students a year. That number is wrong in at least three ways. It divides a capacity ceiling rather than an actual enrolment. It assumes six equally sized cohorts, when QASMT takes entrants at Year 7 and again at Year 10, and enrols international students in Years 10 to 12 only, so the senior years are structurally larger. And a cohort size is not an intake anyway, because places also open through the merit pool as vacancies arise across the year.

Every applicants-per-place ratio published for QASMT rests on a calculation like that one. That does not make the people publishing them dishonest, but it does mean the number is an estimate wearing the clothes of a statistic.

If you have seen a specific acceptance rate or an applicants-per-place ratio for QASMT quoted somewhere, it was estimated by whoever published it. Some sites label the estimate honestly and some do not. None of them have the underlying data, because the Academies have not released it.

What we can tell you is what changed, and the school's own history explains a lot of it. QASMT opened in 2007 on the Toowong site of the former Toowong State High School, later Toowong College, which closed at the end of 2006. It opened as a senior academy taking students in Years 10 to 12. Year 7 entry came later, which is why there is so little history around it compared with a school like Brisbane State High.

In those early years, getting into a Queensland Academy was comparatively easier than it is now. There was less competition, far fewer families had heard of the Academies, and the preparation industry around them barely existed. Word of mouth has done its work since. The Academies are now well known across South-East Queensland, families start preparing years ahead, and the school has grown from a small senior campus into a full Years 7 to 12 school.

The practical consequence for a parent reading this in 2026 is simple. Advice from a family who went through this ten or fifteen years ago, however well meant, describes a different school and a different level of competition from the one your child is walking into.

What documents do I need for a QASMT application?

Prepare these before you open the portal, because incomplete applications are not progressed to the engagement activity stage:

last two years

Reasonable Adjustments in the test

it being shared

• a recent photograph of the applicant, school ID or passport style, taken within the
• birth certificate details, plus visa details for temporary or permanent residents
• the two most recent semester school reports
• NAPLAN results where available, with Year 5 NAPLAN possibly requested on completion
• learning support documentation, if your child needs Access Arrangements or
• evidence of giftedness, where you already have it and the author has consented to

There is no requirement to have your child formally assessed for giftedness. The Academies say many highly capable learners have not undertaken such assessments.

One trap worth flagging: only the parent registered as the Primary contact can start or edit an application. Choose the parent who will actually be checking email and registering for the test.

What happens if my child is not offered a place?

They may go into the merit pool, which keeps the application live for vacancies right through to the end of Year 7. This is not a consolation category and it is worth understanding properly.

Queensland Academies state that the number of highly capable candidates seeking enrolment typically exceeds the number of places, and that the merit pool gives a candidate who was not offered an engagement activity or a place during the on-time period further consideration should vacancies arise. Vacancies come up when a successful candidate cannot accept, through normal student movement, or when a cohort is expanded.

The Academies also note that at all previous entry points, a number of vacancies have been considered and highly capable applicants in the merit pool have been offered enrolment. While in the merit pool, you will be prompted to supply updated reports and NAPLAN as they are released, so keep the application fed.

Will I find out how my child went in the test?

No. Queensland Academies state that they do not distribute individual test results or parent reports and do not provide diagnostic information about a child's strengths or areas for growth.

They are also unable to give individual feedback to unsuccessful candidates, and the Principal's decision on selection is final. So the only diagnostic picture you will ever have of your child's performance against this format is the one you build yourself, before the day, through properly marked practice.

A few rules that catch families out

QAHS before you apply. You cannot hedge.

at QASMT into Year 10 at QACI or QAHS.

full selective entry process.

Year 10 entry, which is open at all three campuses from Term 3 of Year 8.

• One application per year, across all three Academies. You choose QASMT, QACI or
• No transfer between campuses. There is no process to move from the end of Year 9
• Siblings get nothing automatic. Siblings of current students must go through the
• Missing Year 7 is not the end. Students who miss Year 7 entry can apply for

Where to next

section by section

selective pathways compared

• QASMT entrance test format: the five sections,
• Edutest exam format: the test provider and how results are reported
• QASMT or Brisbane State High?: the two Brisbane

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FAQ block for schema

What year do you apply for QASMT? Year 5. The application process for Year 7 entry is designed to be undertaken while your child is in Year 5.

How much is the QASMT application fee? $270.00 on-time for Year 7 in 2028, non-refundable. Late applications carry a $300.00 fee.

Is the QASMT entrance test two days? No. Your child sits one approximately three-hour session on either of the two published testing dates, allocated automatically.

How many places does QASMT offer in Year 7? The Academies do not publish a number of Year 7 places, an applicant count or an acceptance rate. The only published figure is a whole-school enrolment capacity of 1,480 students across Years 7 to 12.

When did QASMT open? In 2007, on the Toowong site of the former Toowong State High School, later Toowong College, which closed at the end of 2006. It opened as a senior academy for Years 10 to 12, with Year 7 entry added later.

Is QASMT harder to get into than it used to be? The Academies publish no data either way, but the school is far better known than in its early years and families now prepare years ahead, so the field is larger and better prepared than it once was.

Does QASMT publish a cut-off score? No. No cut-off score and no weighting between the Entrance Test, school reports and the engagement activity is published.

Does QASMT give parents the test results? No. Individual test results, parent reports and diagnostic feedback are not distributed.

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Written by the teaching team at Practice Tests and Exams. We have taught Year 3 to 12 English and Year 3 to 6 maths in small group classes to our own syllabus since 2008, and prepare Queensland students for selective entry and scholarship exams.

Dates, fees and the selection process verified against the Queensland Academies Year 7 enrolments page, and the enrolment capacity figure against the Queensland Department of Education enrolment eligibility plan, on 10 September 2026; that page was last updated by the Academies on 16 July 2026. Confirm the current cycle before applying.