ATAR explained
What is the ATAR and how is it calculated?
ATAR stands for Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank. It is a number between zero and 99.95 that tells your position in your year group.
Your result should not be seen as a score or rank, but rather your percentile position out of all students who are completing the HSC with you.
It’s based on overall HSC results and is designed to be a predictor of your first-year performance at university.
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.
Each university sets a lowest rank to receive an offer for each course. This is seen as the fairest method for student comparison and, as a nationally recognised measure, it is used by many universities as the primary basis for admission.
This generally means that ATARs reflect supply and demand more than the intellectual capacity needed to study the course.
Your ATAR is affected by your rank in your courses, your raw HSC marks and how well you do in the various assessment tasks for chosen subjects. Subjects are scaled according to the level of sophistication of the content and skills required.
Watch our explainer to understand how the ATAR is calculated, how scaling works and how scaling affects your marks. Visit UAC for more information.
To ensure that you are on an ATAR pathway, 8 of your 10 units need to be selected from the Board Developed Category.
No subject will guarantee you a high ATAR, and no subject will condemn you to a low ATAR. Our advice is to start thinking about what you enjoy and what inspires you. Browse your course options early and take note of the admissions criteria and high school subjects required or advised for the courses that interest you.
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This video helps to demystify how the ATAR is calculated and how it is used by universities. For more information including how the ATAR is scaled and the ATAR cut-offs for the University of Sydney.
