UNSW imposes minimum entry score of 80+ ATAR (2 Viewers)

[Selador]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...w-score-students/story-fn59niix-1226681671788

THE University of NSW has broken ranks from the government's expansion agenda by becoming the first institution to require a minimum entrance score to enrol in any of its courses next year.

Vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer told staff in a video announcement yesterday that UNSW would restrict entry to school-leavers with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of 80 or above.

Professor Hilmer said he was concerned that the quality of degrees may be slipping as universities rushed to enrol as many undergraduates as they could take in order to maximise government funding.

[...]

 

[brent012]

first institution to require a minimum entrance score to enrol in any of its courses next year.

UTS have had a minimum of 69 for a few years now, that's before bonus points can even be offered. I'm not sure if it's enforced but it says it in multiple places and i've never met anyone who got in straight out of school with an ATAR under 70.

Tbh though this change will not affect many people, most courses at UNSW were above 80 cut off anyway.

 

[traiwit]

last year, one of my friend got ATAR 78 and he got into unsw engineering which require atar of 91

 

[RookieLaw]

last year, one of my friend got ATAR 78 and he got into unsw engineering which require atar of 91

Lol, could you explain how? :}

 

[Parvee]

Lol, could you explain how? :}

he most likely got bonus points from hsc plus/EAS to meet the threshold of 81 for FEAS which gives you a chance to still make unsw engineering if your atar falls inbetween 81-90.95

 

[someth1ng]

I agree with the cut-off - in fact, I think the minimum should be higher than 80 - more around 85, I think.

The UTS one is here: http://www.uts.edu.au/future-studen...ool-students/apply-school/eligiblity-criteria

 

[sirable1]

This is a good thing. All universities should adapt this constraint rule.

 

[sirable1]

Besides, most courses are around 85-99.65 anyways

 

[someth1ng]

I think we also need smaller but better universities - like how MIT has around 11000 students and Harvard has around 21000 students but UNSW has 50000 students and USyd has 49000 students but then again, they also get a lot more funding.

Places need to be more competitive and proper teaching needs to be given.

I really comes down to how much funding is needed for universities.

 

[Omnipotence]

Tbh though this change will not affect many people, most courses at UNSW were above 80 cut off anyway.

Exactly. The article indicates only 2 subjects are below 80 anyways...

 

[ilikecats]

Exactly. The article indicates only 2 subjects are below 80 anyways...

http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2013-main-cutoffs.pdf

I can't see the article as it tells me to pay, but by my count there are 8 UNSW courses which are >80

 

[isildurrrr1]

I think we also need smaller but better universities - like how MIT has around 11000 students and Harvard has around 21000 students but UNSW has 50000 students and USyd has 49000 students but then again, they also get a lot more funding.

Places need to be more competitive and proper teaching needs to be given.

I really comes down to how much funding is needed for universities.

That's only if we can create a Uni of london system where each of their schools aren't "highly ranked" because of their small size, they are the top of their respective fields.

If australia wants it's uni's to reach the tippy top, start pouring that defence research contracts. That's how MIT got most A LOT of it's funding from in the first place.

I don't think making it harder for people to get in will make a difference in terms of people finishing a degree, people who can't keep up will get dropped out/expelled from uni. The only reason why the ATAR scores are even that high is just supply and demand. nothing more nothing less. Oh and take in less intl students for undergrad, it's so fucking easy to get forged education documents in China.

 

[so_what]

Reaction to this at http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1...itist-for-setting-atar-benchmark-of-80/?cs=12

It's hardly any different to the way it is now. You get an ATAR of say 75, get bonus points, you still get in.

 

[brent012]

If UNSW make this minimum entry score inclusive of any EAS and bonus points then it's pretty pointless. I think this whole thing is a bit of a publicity stunt anyway, timed ready for UAC applications which open in August. They want to fool impressionable parents and students. If UNSW were seriously concerned about uncapped places lowering the quality of education they would simply limit the places themselves which would cause the cut offs to naturally rise anyway. Instead they have introduced this floor atar which will allow them to take on as many students as they like without risking having the cutoffs fall below 80. In the courses which currently have cutoffs under 80 the places will be filled by further lowering the standards for international students and transferring students.

Transferring is not remotely difficult for majority of courses if you are suited for tertiary study, a guy I went to school with got an ATAR below 60 and I believe he did put effort in - just went average and got extremely screwed over by the poor scaling in his subjects. He went to UWS for a year and is now studying a course at UNSW which has a cut off in the high 80s

If australia wants it's uni's to reach the tippy top, start pouring that defence research contracts. That's how MIT got most A LOT of it's funding from in the first place.

I've already heard of ADFA referred to as the black sheep of UNSW.

he most likely got bonus points from hsc plus/EAS to meet the threshold of 81 for FEAS which gives you a chance to still make unsw engineering if your atar falls inbetween 81-90.95

Wow, I thought FEAS was strictly 80+ regardless of bonus points.

 

[someth1ng]

If UNSW make this minimum entry score inclusive of any EAS and bonus points then it's pretty pointless. I think this whole thing is a bit of a publicity stunt anyway, timed ready for UAC applications which open in August. They want to fool impressionable parents and students. If UNSW were seriously concerned about uncapped places lowering the quality of education they would simply limit the places themselves which would cause the cut offs to naturally rise anyway. Instead they have introduced this floor atar which will allow them to take on as many students as they like without risking having the cutoffs fall below 80. In the courses which currently have cutoffs under 80 the places will be filled by further lowering the standards for international students and transferring students.

Transferring is not remotely difficult for majority of courses if you are suited for tertiary study, a guy I went to school with got an ATAR below 60 and I believe he did put effort in - just went average and got extremely screwed over by the poor scaling in his subjects. He went to UWS for a year and is now studying a course at UNSW which has a cut off in the high 80s


I've already heard of ADFA referred to as the black sheep of UNSW.


Wow, I thought FEAS was strictly 80+ regardless of bonus points.

I really agree with that bit - it seems perfectly timed and really doesn't matter much. They should restrict places and remove their bonus points scheme - or at least, heavily restrict bonus points. On top of that, I'd cut 25-50% of applicants and make fairer failure rates.

Some of this applies to USyd too - 2% fail rate in first year chemistry (advanced)? Really?

And I expect USyd to follow suit and do something similar, like 85 minimum.

 

[OzKo]

I really agree with that bit - it seems perfectly timed and really doesn't matter much. They should restrict places and remove their bonus points scheme - or at least, heavily restrict bonus points. On top of that, I'd cut 25-50% of applicants and make fairer failure rates.

Some of this applies to USyd too - 2% fail rate in first year chemistry (advanced)? Really?

And I expect USyd to follow suit and do something similar, like 85 minimum.

I wouldn't count on it.

If they did that, I know that there would be some degrees they would have to cut as a result.

 

[someth1ng]

I wouldn't count on it.

If they did that, I know that there would be some degrees they would have to cut as a result.

Possibly, but I do, at least, see USyd do something similar to match UNSW's policies.

 

[someth1ng]

One more thing, as elitist as this will sound - I think university placements in general need to be tightened. Really, the only degree that's hard to get into by all standards is MBBS but otherwise, most all courses seem to have an easier way in, whether it's Law (at another university like UWS) or science.

I just think that, in general, university placements should be quite restricted.

Last thing that I want to see is common standards between ALL universities in Australia - graduates between all universities should have gone through a system that is a rigorous as the most challenging one. Pretty much all of the UWS students that I know go out a lot and get GPA of 6+ while I worked my ass off almost daily at USyd and get around 5.5. Yes, maybe they worked hard but how many people at USyd do you actually see have GPA of 6+? Not a huge amount.

 

[OzKo]

One more thing, as elitist as this will sound - I think university placements in general need to be tightened. Really, the only degree that's hard to get into by all standards is MBBS but otherwise, most all courses seem to have an easier way in, whether it's Law (at another university like UWS) or science.

I just think that, in general, university placements should be quite restricted.

On what basis could you justify that?

 

[brent012]

Some of this applies to USyd too - 2% fail rate in first year chemistry (advanced)? Really?

That's scaling gone too far, that is worrying if they are real stats.

Even the easiest subjects I did in my first year (got marks of ~95 in each) had failure rates over or around 20%. In one of those subjects 17% of students failed the must pass final alone. That was despite the fact that roughly 95% of the exam questions were word for word or slightly modified questions that we were given each week, that he had hinted times multiple across the semester that we should do them and wasn't very subtle about it towards the end of the semester and that he was very active on the discussion board helping us with any problems we had with those questions in the week leading up to the exam.