ATAR

What is an ATAR?

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is one of the primary mechanisms used to determine Tertiary Entrance. It is a measure of your achievement in relation to other eligible students in your cohort. An ATAR is expressed as a number from the highest 99.95 down to 00.00 in increments of 0.5. An ATAR of 80, does not mean your average subject results were 80%, it indicates you are in the top 20% of students in the state.

Am I Eligible?

Students who complete units 3 and 4 of five General subjects will be eligible. Students who compete four General Subjects plus one ‘other’ are also eligible. The ‘other’, can be an Applied Subject (such as Religion and Ethics) or a Cert III such as Fitness or Hospitality.

How will my ATAR be calculated?

ATARs are calculated by QTAC using the following steps: 1. Your subject results from Unit 3 and 4 are provided to QTAC along with any

VET qualifications 2. Subjects are scaled. This happens each year. The process is designed to compare results from different subjects.

This means a that if you received 85% for one subject, it may not actually contribute as much as a subject that your received 80% for depending on the subject scale. 3. Your best 5 subjects are identified and the scaled results are aggregated. 4. Students across Queensland are placed in descending order based on their best 5 aggregated subject scores. 5. The state cohort is divided by 2000 and then an equal number of students are allocated to each band. (For example if there are 60000 eligible students, then 30 will receive an

ATAR of 99.95, the next 30 students will receive 99.90 and so on.) See the Director of Teaching and Learning for more information or go to qtac.edu.au/atar-my-path/atar

Can I receive an ATAR prediction?

Students who received an OP under the previous system were provided with an estimate. There are a number of difficulties in providing students with an ATAR prediction: 1. There is no historical data on which to base calculations. There are no subject scaling trends on which to base calculations. 2. Semester 1 results in Year 12 provided a reliable indication of student progress under the OP System. Moving to External

Exams, some contributing 50% of the overall score, means that subject results after Unit 3 are not necessarily a reliable indication of progress. These factors mean that ATAR predictions will not be available for students.