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Australia has a state-based education system. In each state, university admission centres are responsible for calculating the ATAR from the sum of the scaled marks for an individual's top ten scoring units.
Kim Paino is a General Manager of Marketing and Engagement at Universities Admission Centre or UAC.
To be eligible for receiving an ATAR, students in Victoria must complete the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE); in Tasmania, the ATAR is based on students’ Tertiary Entrance (TE) scores.
Highlights
- To calculate an ATAR, university admission centres consider how students did in their school assessments that count towards the ATAR during their Year 11 and 12.
- The ATAR rank results from the scaling process expressed as a percentile rank on a 2000-point scale from 99.95 down to 0.00.
- Some universities offer alternative pathways.
In New South Wales, UAC provides the ATAR to secondary school students awarded the Higher School Certificate (HSC).
Ms Paino says that although each state has its own secondary education system and qualification, and they calculate ATARs independently, there is an appropriate mechanism in place that makes an ATAR transferable across state borders.
Secondary school student went to university, the average ATAR would be 50.00, but since that’s not the case, the medium ATAR is usually around 70.00.
“For Year 12, the application is pretty straight forward because we even have their personal details, because we get that from our local Board of Studies. So, it’s kind of prepopulated once they put their student number in, and the pin that we email to them. Really the only thing they have to do is fill-in what courses they are applying for and pay the application fee.”
