What happened to the UAI?
In June 2009 the Universities Admission Index (UAI) became the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).
There were three changes:
- the name was changed
- the highest rank became 99.95 as opposed to 100 for the UAI
- the UAI indicated a student’s position in relation to their Year 10 cohort; the ATAR now indicates a student’s position in relation to their Year 7 cohort.
The Australasian Conference of Tertiary Admissions Centres (ACTAC) decided in 2008 to adopt a common name for existing selection indices across all states and territories (except Queensland) to highlight that student ranks are reported on a common scale.
The change in the top rank is to bring NSW students’ ranks into line with their interstate peers.
Some students may be disappointed at not being able to obtain a rank of 100. One of the common mistakes people make is to think that a UAI of 100 means a ‘perfect score’; this is not the case. In the past, students who received a UAI of 100 were those who were in the top 0.025% of their peers and the aggregate marks of this top group have ranged from 480 to 498. There has never, in 30 years, been a student with a ‘perfect’ aggregate of 500.
Achieving an ATAR of 99.95 is the same as achieving a UAI of 100 – you are in the top ranked group of students. The only difference is that the top group now corresponds to the top 0.05% of students and it is likely to include 45-50 students rather than 18-23 as before.
The NSW minimum leaving age is being raised from 15 to 17 years or completion of the School Certificate in 2011. When this happens all students will complete Year 10, leading to a change in the NSW ranks. Rather than have this change occur after the other two changes, the decision was taken to modify the reference cohort by including students who left school before the end of Year 10, with all three changes being implemented in June 2009.
There will be no practical consequences for students as far as university admission is concerned:
- the rules for the ATAR are exactly the same as for the UAI
- marks will be scaled in the same way as before so that the rank order of students will be the same
- the same applicants will be selected for the same courses as any change in an ATAR compared to a UAI will see an equivalent change in course cut-offs.
What are the effects of the change?
For most students the effect will be small. The top ATAR will be 99.95 rather than 100 but approximately 45-50 students will now receive this top rank.
Students who would have received UAIs between 99.80 and 99.95 will receive an ATAR with the same value or 0.05 lower. All other students will receive slightly higher ATARs than the UAIs they would have previously received. The difference decreases from approximately 3 for UAIs of 60.00 to 1.6 at 80.00 and 0 at 99.70. The UAI to ATAR conversion table shows the relationship between ATARs and UAIs based on 2008 UAI data.
There will be no change in the likelihood of individual students gaining admission to their preferred courses. Any small change in the ATARs, compared to the corresponding UAIs, will be compensated by an equivalent change in the course cut-offs.
