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ATAR scores retain a pyschological stranglehold over schools, parents and education policymakers, according to new research, despite the growing numbers of students finding other paths into tertiary study.
As tens of thousands of school leavers prepare to receive their VCE results this week, experts at Victoria University say the ATAR’s grip is hampering efforts of decision makers to get more disadvantaged and minority students into the nation’s universities.
Meredith Hunt is now a prosecutor, despite having received an ATAR score that initially left her shattered.Credit: Simon Schluter
Calls have been growing for years to abolish ATAR and replace it with a broader assessment of students’ skills, interests and abilities, in line with most other developed nations.
The team from Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute says the national system of grading students for university entry, introduced in 2009, still works well for Australia’s top universities, upmarket private schools and students from wealthy backgrounds. It is also still heavily used in Victoria: 82 per cent of students who started university in 2023 landed a spot via their ATAR score.
But for many other young people around the nation, the ATAR’s relevance is waning. In NSW, fewer than 50 per cent of students who started university in 2023 entered on their ATAR alone.
Nationally, the researchers found ATAR scores played no part in 30 per cent of admissions in 2023.
“The ATAR is often treated as if it decides everything, but our analysis shows it applies much less often than people think,” Mitchell Institute director Peter Hurley said.
“The ATAR undoubtedly still dominates admissions processes in some contexts, but it is no longer the backbone of the system it once was. Now, it is just one of the many ways that people can gain entry to a higher education course.”
Hurley said the data showed the ATAR disproportionately rewarded students from privileged backgrounds, while compounding barriers faced by regional, low-income, Indigenous and disabled students.
A 2023 government report found that the presence at universities of several of the latter groups was going backwards.
Mitchell Institute report co-author Melinda Hildebrandt said while she and her colleagues were not calling for ATAR to be abolished, other post-high school study pathways should be given more attention.
“It’s not for us to say to abolish [ATAR],” Hildebrandt said.
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“There will still be a place for it in the system, for those certain kinds of courses at particular kinds of universities. But it’s stranglehold on the system, also maybe the imagination of people, let’s abolish that idea.”
Crown prosecutor Meredith Hunt has not thought about her ATAR in years, despite being shattered after her 2017 VCE results gave her an admissions score well below what she needed to follow her dreams into a law degree.
But she said she soon put her disappointment behind her and enrolled in an advanced diploma of legal practice, which led to a law/criminology degree, and then her dream job at the Office of Public Prosecutions.
Hunt says she is living proof that students can achieve their ambitions without a high ATAR. And while the lawyer does not think about her score much these days, she too believes there must be a better way.
“I don’t think you should ever rank people, and especially young, impressionable teenagers, in a way that [ATAR] does,” Hunt said.
“Everyone’s got their own strengths and talents and motivations and inspirations, and I think that at that time in your life, there’s just a lot of stress put on what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, and you’re still trying to grow up and figure it out.
“I don’t know what can be done to the ATAR system, but I think that it’s something that definitely needs to be looked at.”
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