can your school ranking drag atar down?? pls help (1 Viewer)

[vicisaur]

my school ranking is around 100-200 and it's a non selective school. my cohort is fairly smart? but there are certain people who could care less about the hsc and don't even turn up to class. i'm really worried that my atar marks will be scaled down due to low school ranking, since im trying to get a 90+ atar mark. thoughts on this?

 

[GoldenMelon]

my school ranking is around 100-200 and it's a non selective school. my cohort is fairly smart? but there are certain people who could care less about the hsc and don't even turn up to class. i'm really worried that my atar marks will be scaled down due to low school ranking, since im trying to get a 90+ atar mark. thoughts on this?

Your school ranking actually has no effect on your ATAR lol. There have been many people who have went to schools ranked lower than yours and gotten 99 ATARs. But you do wanna make sure you are ranked as high as possible in all your subjects if you are looking to achieve a high ATAR

 

[icycledough]

Definitely as goldenmelon said, your school ranking has absolutely no effect on your final ATAR. However, what generally tends to happen is that people at the top selective schools will have a lot of 99+ ATARS. Now, probably the biggest reason for that is their cohort. What that means is that in a very 'academically gifted' cohort, your rank doesn't have to necessarily be 'amazing' to get a high Band 6, for example. As an example, I went to a top 10 selective school last year and got a final Chemistry mark of 94, despite only being internally ranked in the mid 20s. All it means is that your rank has to be as good as possible, which can be argued that in a lower ranked school, if some people don't care too much about their ATAR, can make it easier to achieve.

 

[jimmysmith560]

Being mindful of what was mentioned above, and for future reference, let's explore this concept in a bit more detail.

The final mark for a subject (the technical name for which is the HSC mark) is comprised of 2 elements:

• The Assessment Mark
• The Examination Mark

The Assessment Mark is the mark you receive that reflects your performance in your school-based assessment tasks/exams. It contributes 50% of your HSC mark and is subject to a process called moderation. This process uses the Examination Mark to adjust your Assessment Mark and is dependent on your rank relative to your cohort in your respective subjects, meaning that this is where ranking is important. The goal of ranking as high as possible remains the same, irrespective of the school you attend. The main difference, as was mentioned above, is that maximising your chances of receiving a favourable Assessment Mark will require you to rank as high as possible if you are part of a cohort that is not academically capable, as opposed to an academically capable one (such as that of a selective school) where you may not need to rank as highly to achieve the same favourable result. You mentioned that your cohort is fairly smart, but that there are some students who are indifferent about the HSC. In this case, the appropriate strategy would be to attempt to rank as highly as possible, so as to avoid any doubts, hopefully allowing you to ensure optimal performance in terms of your Assessment Mark.

The Examination Mark is the mark you receive that reflects your performance in the HSC exam of your respective subjects. It contributes the remaining 50% of your HSC mark and is subject to a process called alignment. This process involves aligning your raw mark (which is the mark that you receive on the exam paper itself, with no adjustments made yet), hence modifying it. The modified mark is what you will end up receiving as your Examination Mark. Alignment typically works in the student's favour. Below is an example of 2020 raw marks and algined marks (Examination Marks) that were received by some students in English Advanced:



An important thing to keep in mind with respect to the Examination Mark is that this mark is determined solely based on your own performance in the HSC exams. While the process of alignment is indeed applied, this mark is unaffected by factors such as your rank relative to your cohort and your school rank.

I hope this helps!