So there's this new Bachelor of Data Science course at RMIT commencing in sem 1 of next year. The prerequisites for it is just the usual 25 in eng and 20 in any maths, but it doesn't state an atar obviously since the course hasn't commenced yet. So if i apply for the course does that mean i'll get an offer regardless of my atar or is there some sort of benchmark for new courses like such? Below the entry score it states "Not available".
So, ATARs don't work the way you think they do. You may be aware that the clearly-in ATAR is the lowest ATAR that got you an offer for that course. Eg, the bachelor of biomed at RMIT had a clearly in of 69.20 last year, but it was 75.75 in 2018. All this means is that in 2018, the ATAR of the lowest ranked student accepted was 75.75. Then, in 2019, the ATAR of the lowest ranked student accepted was lower, at 69.20
The language here is important - it's not that they arbitrarily decided that 69.20 should be a new cut-off ATAR (though universities CAN decide that, if they want). What happened was they accepted the students they wanted, then whatever ATAR was lowest, that's what they put up on their website. The clearly-in ATAR that's on their website has nothing to do with current year 12 students, and can change drastically from year to year.
At the end of the day, universities exist to make money. Make any claim you want about academia, research, empowering the youth, education - universities are a business, who generate income mostly from teaching students. From a business standpoint, it makes sense then to teach as many students as they possibly can - but there are limits, based on the amount of lectures they have, and classrooms they have to teach in, and other things. So, first the university figures out how many students they can take, then they accept as many as they possibly can - and they use ATARs to decide which students they'll take. So they look at who got the highest ATAR that preferenced their course, and they accept them. Then they do that for the one with the second highest ATAR. And the third highest. And so on and so forth, until there's no more spots into the course.
So, what does that mean for you? Well, firstly, even if you were going for a course that HAD a clearly-in ATAR advertised, you would have no idea what score you'd need to get into that course. The reason those ATARs are listed is because they don't usually change by much from year to year (but there are examples of them changing by as much as 12). So, people can use them as a broad goalpost of where to aim, even if it's not perfect.
So, will you get a place in this course? It depends on how many spaces they have available in the course, what ATAR you get, and how many people who did better than you are interested in this same course.
Well, if you don't have last year's ATAR to guesstimate how well you need to do, what ATAR should you aim to get? Your best bet - just as high as you can possibly get it. I'm sorry I can't give you a more concrete answer, but even RMIT - who know how many places they have and likely have an idea from enquiries and open day how many people are interested in this course - themselves probably have no idea how high of an ATAR you'll need
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