Explanation of university entry and various schemes (ATAR, Selection rank, EAS, SRS, Bonus points, Equity Scholarship, Direct early entry etc) (1 Viewer)

[specificagent1]

I have spent many hours researching and understanding how all the UAC schemes and terms work and thought that a centralised guide would assist you in understanding how it all works and save you some time during your HSC.

Setting the Scene:
There are two main ways a year 12 student can get an offer to study at university (everything here will be explained in comprehensive detail further down):

• Method 1: Through the main offer rounds which occur after the release of your ATAR as they are base off your selection rank which is based off your ATAR and adjustment factors and for some courses there may be additional selection criteria. There are many ways in which you may receive adjustment factors. Note: I will not be explaining how the ATAR works as there are already existing guides on how moderation, alignment and scaling works for the ATAR process.

• Method 2: Through receiving an early offer to study at a university which is based off various factors depending on the university. There are many ways in which you may receive an early offer and this ties closely with EAS and SRS.

Key Terms:

- Adjustment factors: Additional points given to you by a particular university. Adjustment factors do not alter your ATAR and is given separately by each university upon their own conditions.​

- Selection rank: This refers to the figure that is your ATAR + adjustment factors. Meaning for example, if you receive an ATAR of 80 and have 5 adjustment factors your selection rank will be 85. Note: University offers via method 1 is base on your selection rank not your ATAR.​

- EAS: UAC's Education Access Scheme aimed at helping individuals that are disadvantaged. This scheme gives you adjustment factors. More detail below.​

- SRS: UAC's early offer scheme for all universities, yet each university may choose to decide how they run it and hence SRS at some universities may have certain requirements.​

​

Adjustment Factors:
How do adjustment factors work and how can they get me into university?

All university offers work on a basis of you having to reach the lowest selection rank (LSR). (Note: there are exceptions here for competitive courses like medicine, please check on the UAC website.) The lowest selection rank is the lowest selection rank (ATAR + adjustment factors) you need to reach in order to get an offer for the course. Hold up, what's the lowest ATAR then?? The lowest ATAR is the lowest ATAR of the person that met the selection rank of the course. For example, if you had a selection rank of 80 resulting from an ATAR of 70 and 10 adjustment and the LSR for a course is 80 and you got in, the published lowest ATAR for that course will be 70.

Wait, so can i get in with just reaching the lowest ATAR? No you can not, you must reach the lowest selection rank so even if your ATAR was 75 and had no adjustments for the example above, you will still not get an offer even though your ATAR is above that of the individual that got in with the lowest ATAR of 70. This is as that individual had a selection rank of 80 and hence met the requirements. If you have no adjustments your ATAR = selection rank as selection rank is ATAR + adjustments and ATAR + 0 = ATAR.

Wait, so my ATAR is below the lowest ATAR but my selection rank is above the lowest selection rank, can I get in? Yes you can, as long as your selection rank is above the lowest selection rank you can get in.

Guaranteed selection rank v lowest selection rank? Most courses have a published guaranteed selection rank meaning if your selection rank is above or equivalent to that figure you will get an offer. Some courses only publish the lowest selection rank of previous years to give you an indication of what they are after but will not make any promises. This mostly occurs with competitive courses.

Wait up, so selection ranks are the most important, I WANT those ADJUSTMENT FACTORS, how do I get them?????????????

EAS:
The education access scheme is a scheme organised by UAC to assist individuals that have been disadvantaged during their senior schooling by providing individuals with adjustment factors. You can apply for this scheme directly with UAC and check whether you may qualify. Although this scheme is organised by UAC, each university are responsible on how they choose to assist the disadvantaged. What does this mean? UAC simply decides the following thing on behalf of all the universities in regards to EAS:

• What categories of disadvantage is considered.
• Assess your application and deem whether you are eligible.
• Provide this information to the university.

It is the duty of the university to decide how they respond to your EAS application in areas such as:

• How many adjustment factors they will provide you.
• Which category of disadvantage will they provide adjustment factors for. Not all universities will give adjustment factors for the same category of disadvantage.
• What course you can use these adjustment factors for.

For example, you may have been deemed by UAC to be eligible for social economic disadvantage but university A may only give you 3 adjustment factors, university B gives you 5, where as university C gives you none because they choose not to give any for social economic disadvantage. Not all courses accept EAS points, but the vast majority do. Each university decides this, check with the university websites, they would all have a page for EAS, ie google "UNSW EAS".

Subject Base Points:
Some universities offer adjustment factors to students base on their performance in individual subjects related to their degrees. Note this is not a UAC initiative and each university runs their own programs with some degrees excluded and they all have their own criteria in assessing your performance. You can find their website that list further information for each particular university.

Questionnaires, Portfolios and extra criteria (for the purpose of adjustment factors):
Some universities for particular degrees provide you with an opportunity to answer a series of questions or submit your portfolios in order to attempt to receive some adjustment factors. For example, UTS has a program for engineering called EDGE where you can answer a series of questions and submit a portfolio to potentially receive up to 13 adjustment factors. Where as UNSW has a similar initiative for engineering where they will consider you if you are within 10 points of the LSR.

There are also schemes for elite athletes or musicians or leadership commitments.

Some universities may offer other criteria that may award you with adjustment factors such as women in engineering, indigenous people and other criteria. This guide is to provide an understanding of how everything works. It is still your responsibility to do research for your own degree.

Part 1/2

 

[specificagent1]

WOWOWOWOW I'm too good for adjustment factors, I am only using ATAR to get into my degree:

Hold up, not only is that not a very wise decisions but sometimes your ATAR may not be able to get you into a degree. This is due to additional requirements.

Course specific requirements:
Some courses on top of reaching the lowest selection rank you are required to have also pass other selection criteria. This is not an exhaustive list of them all rather this is an explanation of things, for example:
- Medicine and dentistry requires UCAT and interview.
- Law at UNSW requires the LAT.
- Education requires you to answer a series of questions.
Please do your research for your particular course as these requirements may change every year.

NAh stuff this I want an early offer to get over all this!!!!!!

Early Offers:
Early offers work on assessing other criteria depending on the program and sending you either a conditional or unconditional offer. A conditional offer requires you to satisfy the requirements of an early offer to receive the offer, this may be a reduced ATAR or simply completing the HSC. An unconditional offer means sweet you're into your course.

SRS:
The schools recommendation scheme (SRS) is an early offer organised by UAC for all universities that considers a series of factors (refer to UAC) and you can apply for it via UAC. Despite this, the universities may each choose how they operate their SRS program. For example, some universities require you to be eligible for EAS in order to receive an SRS offer from them. Such as:

• UNSW Gateway
• USYD E12
• UTS Equity SRS

You may also be required to upload supporting documents or answer certain questions to apply for these scheme. This is known as institution specific requirements.

You can still apply for SRS but only universities in which you are applicable for their criteria of SRS will consider your application. You would need to check each individual university what their SRS program is and whether your course is eligible for SRS. All SRS offers come out on the same day.

Specific Early Offer Programs:
Each university may choose to run additional early offer programs on top of SRS. These universities will decide their criteria for selection and applications are seperate to your UAC applications. The dates and rounds of these are also up to the universities. Not all courses are applicable for these and the early offer may have varying conditions.

Some things I wanted to say:
- You need to check how each university is administering early offers and adjustment factors and how that relates to your course.
- You need to keep up with the various dead lines for the various adjustment factor programs, early offer programs and main round offer schemes and apply well before then. Some requirements are like portfolios and questionnaires that require time to prepare.
- Research your course thoroughly and all available programs. You can always deny an offer and it doesn't hurt to apply

Best of luck with your HSC and university entry! Remember to take a break and put your health first because there are various alternative pathways to university if all the above things fail! You can find many guides on this. Good luck with your studies and hopefully your year 12 is better than being on zoom!

Scholarships

Equity Scholarships:
These are scholarships organised by UAC in which you can apply for to support your studies in university if you are disadvantaged. You can apply directly with UAC for all universities and may be given one but this again depends on the university you end up studying at and whether they choose to give you one or to another person they deem requires it more

Other Scholarships:
These you will have to apply directly to each university and will have different criteria.

Part 2/2

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

The goat, appreciate the effort, this will be handy for the upcoming year

 

[Hiheyhello]

hey, i’ve just got a question
i’m pretty sure that i’ve applied for SRS via UAC for most unis, but due to the vague nature of the site (or maybe it’s just me), i can’t tell if the applications have gone through? is there any way of checking?

 

[specificagent1]

hey, i’ve just got a question
i’m pretty sure that i’ve applied for SRS via UAC for most unis, but due to the vague nature of the site (or maybe it’s just me), i can’t tell if the applications have gone through? is there any way of checking?

If you can login to srs check and change and download your confirmation of application then you're all good

 

[nzexperiment]

thanks this was really useful. Was worried with applications openning tmr