At the release of the main round of university offers yesterday, about two-thirds of entrance scores had gone down by between 0.15 and 11.05 points.

It was mostly a result of an extra 630 main-round offers made by the university in what was the first year of the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR).

In the other courses, demand pushed marks up between 0.4 and 10.85 points.

The University of Newcastle made 7712 main round offers, one of its largest offers to date.

It included 1369 places in teaching degrees, 630 nursing places and more than 500 spots in engineering.

Deputy vice-chancellor for services Sue Gould said almost 1000 offers came from the university's enabling programs, otherwise known as bridging courses, which had developed a strong reputation in the community.

"Those people previously would have been unable to come to university," she said.

"We find many of our university medal winners four years later will come from them."

The university has also added seven new degrees in 2010 after it split its teaching degrees into primary and secondary teaching courses and added a combined teaching and maths degree. "They are proving very popular we are delighted with how that's panned out," Dr Gould said. "Obviously we have hit the mark with those."

It has also introduced a diploma in languages as part of the Federal Government's push to teach more languages.

Dr Gould said the ATAR would not have affected entrance marks and said entrance marks for health degrees held their own, or went up, because of limited places and strong demand.

The university will hold an advisory day at its Callaghan, Central Coast and Port Macquarie campuses today.