15 December 2014
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Almost 83,000 Victorian students have received their Year 12 results, 47,000 of whom also received an ATAR.
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Source: The Age
This year, 49,204 students – 26,259 female students and 22,945 male students – have graduated with their Victorian Certificate of Education and 47,032 secondary school students have received an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank. 14,728 students received a study score of 40 or more in at least one subject.
Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre director Catherine Wills noted that the average ATAR for girls was 64.4 and for boys it was 62.2. However, at the highest level, 22 boys received the top ATAR of 99.95, compared with 11 girls.
The VCE completion rate in 2014 was at an all-time high of 97.7%,
In addition, 12,926 students completed a VCAL certificate in 2014, the most since the introduction of the program 12 years ago.
The relevance of ATAR as a university selection tool has been declining in relevance, particularly since the phased introduction of the uncapped, demand driven system since 2010.
For almost half of all Victorian degree courses in 2014, the ATAR was just one factor among many – or no factor at all – in the selection process.
Of the 1113 courses offered this year, 495 did not have a “clearly in” ATAR requirement by the end of final round offers. They, instead, based selection on a battery of tests, folios, letters, performances and interviews, either in conjunction with (or entirely ignoring) the ATAR.
Dr Daniel Edwards, a principal research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, said close to 50% of students are now admitted to university each year without relying solely on year 12 results. He estimates the figure would have been closer to 30% a decade ago.
Institutions are increasingly thinking about alternative ways of selecting their cohorts. It’s certainly much more likely that people are getting in based on criteria other than ATAR.
See:
ATAR archive