Two broken ankles and a torn groin have shattered Evatt student Ken Scruton's dreams of representing his country in volleyball or playing for a top soccer team in London.
But the Hawker College student, 18, was thrown a lifeline last night when the Universities Admissions Centre released 58,000 offers for courses at NSW and ACT universities.
Ken was offered a place in the University of Canberra's sports coaching and exercise science program - his first preference.
And he got it 15 minutes earlier than the 9pm deadline.
''One of my mates posted on Facebook that they'd put them out at 8.45pm, so I jumped on straight away. I told dad as he was walking down the corridor and he gave me a high five, it's pretty good to see that I got in.''
Only 70 per cent of the 84,000 domestic applicants to UAC were successful in the main round of offers and 3500 ACT students were among those to receive the good news.
Offers were scheduled for posting online at 9pm but UAC director information services Kim Paino admitted results had gone up early in past years.
Ken said his offer came as a big relief. His skills on the sports field had won him positions in national representative teams in volleyball and in top-level soccer this year, leading him to plan a career in either of the two sports. But disappointment struck when a torn groin and broken ankles shattered his confidence on the field.
He changed direction and aimed for a new career in physiotherapy via the sports coaching course, but was dealt another slight disappointment when his Australian Tertiary Admission Rank score arrived at the end of last year.
''I ended up getting 74, which was awesome at the time because I didn't really study and thought I would just scrape through,'' he said. ''But then when I looked back at how little work I did, I realised I could easily have gotten a score closer to 90 and gotten straight into physiotherapy if I had tried, so I ended up kicking myself a bit.''
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