Sure, it's important in terms of acting as a gateway to tertiary study and securing your place in a course at university. What does matter however is work experience. Employers don't look at your ATAR, but at your experience. Your ATAR is merely the threshold requirement.
You may want to include your school or ATAR results and any relevant awards if you're a recent graduate and they're reflective of your academic success. Make sure you're listing your educational qualifications in order of their relevance. Your most recent academic achievement (such as a degree) should be first.
Universities use the ATAR to help them make decisions around admissions to their courses. The ATAR score helps students and course administrators feel confident that they'll be academically able to meet the demands of higher study. ATAR is only one part of getting into a chosen course of study.
Your ATAR is a rank that will help you get into uni – that's it. It isn't the key to the universe; it doesn't shoot laser beams at your enemies or even help you meet people in O-Week (major turn-off). As soon as you get that offer and enrol in your program, no one is going to care or ask what your ATAR was.
Sricharan Prassanna, of Parramatta High School, achieved an ATAR of 99.50. “I couldn't believe my eyes,” he told the Herald. Prassanna studied Maths Extension 1 and 2, Physics, Chemistry, English Advanced and accelerated Tamil Continuers.
The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is a number between 0.00 and 99.95 that indicates a student's position relative to all the students in their age group (ie all 16 to 20 year olds in NSW). So, an ATAR of 80.00 means that you are 20 per cent from the top of your age group (not your Year 12 group).
An ATAR of 75 is hard to get when you consider that only one in four people manage to do it. You can interpret this score as saying that 75 percent of people in the age cohort either didn't get an ATAR or scored lower. Only 25 percent, or one-quarter, of people did better.
In general, most students consider an ATAR of below 30 to be bad. This is because the actual ATAR score is not reported for an ATAR less than 30, it is just stated as <30. Still, this ATAR may be good and all that is required for a student who wants to pursue a trade or enrol in TAFE.
The ATAR is a number from 0 and 99.95 in intervals of 0.05. The highest rank is 99.95, the next highest 99.90, and so on. The lowest automatically reported rank is 30.00, with ranks below 30.00 being reported as 'less than 30'. Find out more about how ATARs are calculated.
ATARs are calculated on a percentile basis and increase in increments of 0.05. An ATAR of 75.00, for example, indicates that you fall in the top 25 per cent of all students in your cohort. In other words, you scored better than 75 percent of the state.
Students who didn't receive the ATAR they needed can enrol in a number of open enrolment subjects available across a range of study areas—all available to start without entry requirements. Once you've completed these, you can use your passing grades to meet entry requirements for a full degree down the track.
First, your ATAR isn't an indication of how smart you are or how well you've done in each subject. It's simply a metric to see how you did in exams in comparison to your cohort. For example, if your ATAR is 75, you got a higher overall mark than 75% of your cohort, or you're in the top 25% of your year group!
A Quick Word On ATAR Scaling
Based on historical data, Chemistry and Physics scale slightly higher than Biology while Economics scales better than Legal Studies and Business Studies. Ancient History tends to scale down compared to Modern History.
Rank, not a score
So an ATAR of 70 doesn't mean you got 70 percent – it means that you're in the top 30 percent of your year group.
As the ATAR is a percentile, a 99.95 ATAR means that you are in the top 0.05% of your state. Likewise, an ATAR of 99 means that you are in the top 1% of your state. Generally an ATAR of 99+ is considered as competitive for entry into Medicine (dependent on performances in the UCAT and Interviews).
The short answer is: No. Your Year 11 grades do not count towards your ATAR! Essentially, the ATAR is a percentile number that's calculated using your HSC Marks — aka, your Year 12 marks. This uses your final HSC marks and your Year 12 internal assessment grades.
In Australia, the lowest minimum ATAR required by a medical program is an ATAR of 90 (Monash University) or adjusted ATAR of 90 (University of Adelaide). If you're a rural student, you could also apply to La Trobe's medical program, which has a minimum unadjusted ATAR requirement of 80.
3. What is the average ATAR score? The average ATAR is usually around 70.00.
It's Never Too Late
A lot of students lack confidence during the HSC year and say things like “I just can't get a better mark” because their past results weren't great.
16 December 2022
One Flinders student, Laura Webb, achieved the highest possible ATAR of 99.95. Laura is one of 33 Queensland students to achieve a 99.95, out of a total 27,245 students who received an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank.
With no ATAR, or a low rank, there are essentially three ways to get into university. You can do an appropriate VET training qualification, gain and present general evidence of learning, or do a pathway program organised by a university. Let's explore each of these alternative pathways.
NSW universities are admitting students with ATARs as low as 30 into some of the state's top tertiary degrees, a Fairfax Media investigation into confidential university data has revealed.
You haven't faced a year of schooling like this before – so some tips on how to get a good ATAR might be just what you need to face the challenges ahead. Luckily, we've got advice from 12 graduates who received a UQ Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship in 2022 by getting an ATAR of 99.90 or 99.95.
For non-rural students who do not qualify for any special access schemes, UNSW Medicine has an official ATAR minimum cut-off of 96.00, and no official UCAT ANZ cut-off exists. However, to have a realistic shot, your scores need to be higher than around ATAR 99.50 & UCAT 92%tile.
17 per cent of students received an ATAR of 90.00 or above, 33.9 per cent received an ATAR of at least 80.00 and 50.3 per cent at least 70.00. The median ATAR was 70.15 this year, slightly higher than in 2019.