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How much does ranking count toward the ATAR? (1 Viewer)

Lolsmith

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Oh...did I tell you my school has never crossed the top 500 barrier before?

Here, you can pretty much say my school will bring me down.
No. That can be good for some people.

All you need to do now is just get ranked first in every class and do well in your exams and your cohort can't drag you down. As far as I'm led to believe, at least.
 

mitchy_boy

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No. That can be good for some people.

All you need to do now is just get ranked first in every class and do well in your exams and your cohort can't drag you down. As far as I'm led to believe, at least.
If you're an outlier then scaling won't touch you, apparently.
 

Kanane

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Gay. I have the worst cohort.
School is ranked below 500, way below 500.

Gotta come first in everything :(
I am empathetic towards you because I'm in the same position.
My school is also late 500's, and that's not going to change any time soon. Oh well, I'm going to count on myself for a good ATAR :D
 

omgd.

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ranking is very important. thoughout year 12, all my marks except for two subjects were in mid 80's so i was sure that i was going to get a low 80's uai. i got low 90's in 2 subs but mid 80's for the rest. but when i got my uai i got 90+ in all my subs & when i looked at school assessment and hsc mark, all my marks were scaled up because of my ranks. honestly, ranks = very important ! doesnt matter how many you have in your grade, try as hard as you can to be top 5 minimum if u want a mid 90's mark, and top 3 atleast for high 90's. i cannt stress how important ranks are .

btw, if it helps. my school was ranked 135, and my subs were terrible scalers
ancient
society & culture
legal studies
eng adv
studies of religion

but i still managed a 98. so dnt stress, just work hard, be consistent, maintain good ranks, and youll be fine ! :)
 

alcalder

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OK this is how it was explained to me.

The HSC mark you get, is the HSC mark you get, regardless of anything else you do. They take those raw marks and scale them so that there is a bell curve over the scaled mean (it was 60% in my time, 50% befor that).

You do school assesments and gain a school ranking. These marks and ranking are sent into the BOS.

Now imagine these school assessment marks and rankings are written onto a piece of elastic. Say the top assessment mark was 90% and the bottom 35%. And everyone in between is there, too.

NOW, after the HSC is done, the TOP mark for the cohort is where the top of the elastic is anchored and the BOTTOM mark for the cohort is where the bottom of the elastic is anchored. Every mark in between is adjusted according to where the elastic stretches.

If the TOP HSC scaled mark is HIGHER than the assessment mark for the top ranked person, then everyone's marks above average are pulled up.

If the BOTTOM HSC scaled mark is LOWER than the assessment mark for the bottom ranked person, then everyone's marks below average are pulled down.

SO, if the top ranked person only gets, say, 75% in the HSC, but the top HSC cohort mark was 99%, they will get 75% for the HSC mark and 99% for the assessment mark.

If the person who achieved the top HSC mark of 99% was only ranked, say, 4th (with a mark of 79%), and that mark was stretched to 84%, then they get 99% for the HSC and 84% for the Assessment.

SO, what is the lesson here? EVERYONE is a year cohort should work TOGETHER to ensure that the ENTIRE school group does the best they can possibly do. Stop competing against each other and start working against the system and try and beat it by everyone getting Band 6!!!
 

ajdlinux

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OK this is how it was explained to me.

The HSC mark you get, is the HSC mark you get, regardless of anything else you do. They take those raw marks and scale them so that there is a bell curve over the scaled mean (it was 60% in my time, 50% befor that).
This is no longer correct. In the New HSC (i.e. post-2001), marks are aligned to Performance Band Descriptors through the use of cutoffs, i.e. a committee decides that a raw mark of 62 is the cutoff for a borderline Band 3 result of 70, or whatever is appropriate for the particular exam paper in question. We have a whole load of stickies on this if you want to look into it further.

The rest of your post seems pretty accurate.
 

alcalder

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Thanks for the correction. But the bell curve, I am pretty sure, is still how they moderate marks in University. So hold onto that for later.
 

gesh17

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I'm in a similar position myself. But what I was told, by annabackwards amongst others, was to ensure that you're at least within the top three for pretty much all your subjects - that way you're, to an extent, in control of your ATAR then someone ranked poorly.
 

Villa94

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ranking is very important. thoughout year 12, all my marks except for two subjects were in mid 80's so i was sure that i was going to get a low 80's uai. i got low 90's in 2 subs but mid 80's for the rest. but when i got my uai i got 90+ in all my subs & when i looked at school assessment and hsc mark, all my marks were scaled up because of my ranks. honestly, ranks = very important ! doesnt matter how many you have in your grade, try as hard as you can to be top 5 minimum if u want a mid 90's mark, and top 3 atleast for high 90's. i cannt stress how important ranks are .

btw, if it helps. my school was ranked 135, and my subs were terrible scalers
ancient
society & culture
legal studies
eng adv
studies of religion

but i still managed a 98. so dnt stress, just work hard, be consistent, maintain good ranks, and youll be fine ! :)
If you dont mind me asking what was your ranks in those subjects? I am doing nearly the exact same subjects so i just want to know.

Thanks
 

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