all you need to know about ATAR

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What is the ATAR?

• It is a rank that measures a student’s overall academic achievement in the NSW HSC in relation to that of other students
  

How is the ATAR calculated?

• HSC marks achieved in particular courses cannot be directly compared to each other as it does not take into account the level of difficulty a course might hold
• Thus, HSC marks are scaled before they are added in order to determine a fair ATAR for all students
• Although, the scaled marks are generally different from the raw marks, the ranking of students within a course is not changed
  

What is the scaling process?

• The scaling process takes the raw HSC marks provided by NESA and estimates what the marks would have been if all courses had been studied by all students.
• The scaling process is designed to encourage students to take the courses for which they are best suited and which best prepare them for their future studies.
• The underlying principle is that a student should neither be advantaged nor disadvantaged by choosing one HSC course over another
  

How do students get an ATAR of 99.95?

• Each year, students who achieve the highest rank of 99.95 have done a wide variety of subjects
• Top students do have one thing in common, which is that they were placed at or near the top in all their subjects
• The best advice for students is to do subjects they enjoy and are good at, rather than choosing subjects because of a belief that they will scale well
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Click this link to find out more! ​https://www.uac.edu.au/media-releases/fact-sheet-all-about-the-atar
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Source: Engagement, U. (2019) Fact Sheet: All About the Atar. 8 December 2018 https://www.uac.edu.au/media-releases/fact-sheet-all-about-the-atar