This thread has kind of confused me a little bit lol everyone is kind of saying different things. At the end of the day, does rank affect your marks? And no, I don't mean Ruse vs some 300 school lol my school is like 600. Every year there are a few people in the cohort with potential for B5s and 6s and around a handful will get an ATAR above 70.
E.g, last year there was a student who got 3 B6s and 2 B5s and her ATAR was 86, does that sound right? Like if someone at a better school got those marks is that an accurate ATAR estimate? Obviously I know it changes every year cos it's a rank blah blah but just humour me.
I believe that the BOSTES website states that the performance of your cohort may have an effect on your examination marks.
Since each school has varying relative difficulties in internal assessments, BOSTES has the system of "moderation" where all schools can be compared through a standardised test (HSC exams). When determining your atar regarding the internal component, they take into account your ranking for a particular subject amongst your class, and the relative mark differences between them. They then take the aggregate of your cohort's internal marks which can be compared to the performance of your class in the exams.
For example, if the aggregate of your class' internal assessments are 400/500, however they score only 300/500 in the hsc examinations, they take this into account as this indicates that your internal assessments were "easier" than the actual examination. It states on the BOSTES website that your marks are "adjusted accordingly"; they do not provide detail on how exactly this may influence your marks.
In the exam, if your cohort does poorly, your examination marks may correspondingly be dragged down. However, it states that they have "safeguards" in place so that they are somewhat protected from outliers. For example, if some students in your class perform way lower than the class average, they will not be taken into account when adjusting your marks. Also, if you are ranked first or last, the performance of your cohort will not affect your overall marks.
Thus, if you go to a rank 600 school, assuming that your year isn't particularly "special" and will perform somewhat the same, it's important to maintain a high rank for all your subjects.
In short, your marks will most likely be affected by your cohort.