Clearly-in ATARs and Tertiary Transparency

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What ATAR do you need to get into your course? Don’t know? Well you’re not alone, and that’s not your fault, because the way clearly-in ATARs are determined and disclosed is a pretty confusing and convoluted process.

A clearly-in ATAR, for the uninitiated, is supposedly the minimum score that you need to achieve in order to secure entry into a particular course. So if you wanted to study Science at Monash commencing at the start of 2016, you would have needed an 85.00 or higher. And if you wanted to do a Bachelor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, you would’ve needed at least a 96.00.

Simple, huh?

Luckily, the system is a little nicer than it seems. There are all sorts of alternate pathways and special entry access schemes to aid those who might not make that ATAR cut-off. Most universities have a system in place for students who are of a disadvantaged background or whose Year 12 journey was negatively impacted in some way. It’s obviously unfair to grant a place to someone with an 85.10 and then deny a place to someone with an 84.95 when the latter student worked extremely hard to battle extenuating circumstances. Thus, each year, universities will admit a number of students who were below the clearly-in cut-off point, but either had some kind of special consideration, or got in through the second and third rounds of offers.

But it’s the amount of students being admitted that has been a source of some debate recently. A few months ago, Fairfax Media found that the “practice of admitting students below minimum entry requirements was endemic,” and that several tertiary courses around the country had courses where up to 99% of the students enrolled did not make the clearly-in requirement.

What this means is that a course will list a clearly-in ATAR at, say, 92.5. But in reality, a high proportion of the students who make it into that course have an ATAR lower than 92.5. The exact numbers vary, but you can look up the percentage breakdown here for VTAC in Victoria or here for UAC in New South Wales.

We’ve now reached the point where the clearly-ins are so far removed from the reality of the cohort, that many people regard them as being a tad disingenuous.

After all, the clearly-in ATAR can change how you view a course. And whilst it’s true that there aren’t many obvious problems with this sneaky false advertising that the universities are engaging in, when you start unpacking the consequences, it’s a little less forgivable. After all, those high clearly-ins can often serve as deterrents to students. If you’ve been a C+ average pupil all your life, you’re unlikely to strive for a course with a 98.00 cut-off even though there’s every chance you’ll still make it in, even if you don’t quite hit that requirement.

The new Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham remarked that he has often had to deal with feedback from students within the tertiary system about how “they didn’t realise there were other ways to get into the course of their choice, or that they started a course with little understanding of its requirements.” And most of these issues stem from how informed these students were about the options they had, and how the universities were perhaps not the most effective communicators when it came to ATARs and course entry pathways.

To some people, this won’t be a big deal. You aim for the highest ATAR you think you’re capable of, and whatever happens after exams is out of your control. Plus, if you don’t quite make the cut-off but you end up getting in anyway, that’s awesome! Right?

But with ATARs being used as marketing tools by universities, many have started to question whether the current clearly-in system is doing more harm than good. It can cause a lot of undue stress for students who are motivated to attend such courses but are concerned about that numerical barrier to entry. And the more time you spend throughout the year obsessing over the numbers, the less time you spend actually learning the content.

Finding a solution has proved difficult seeing as there are so many different tertiary institutions with different approaches. Because clearly-in scores are determined by each university, there’s very little that boards like VTAC or UAC can do in this situation. However, the most recent suggestion has been to mandate that universities have to publish the lowest, highest, and median ATARs for each of their courses which would give future students a more accurate idea of what they’ll need to aim for.

The new priority, according to a Department of Education spokesperson, is transparency. Students have to be provided with accurate information in order to make decisions about their futures, and we can’t do that unless there’s a substantial change to the way universities communicate their entry requirements.

A discussion paper is making the rounds right now (which you can view here) and we’ll keep you up to date with any new developments or ATAR-related news in the future.

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