How school scaling affects ATAR (1 Viewer)

[iane]

Hi guys,

I’m new to this platform but I just wanted to ask you guys for your insights into these problems.

I’m currently in year 11, studying in a school that ranks in the top 100. I’m studying Maths Extension, English Extension, Biology, Chemistry and Business Studies.

Many of my peers, especially in the non-extension subjects, are not willing to put in the effort into the course. I am worried that if I were to not rank 1st in my cohort for the subject, say I rank 10, would school scaling have a large negative impact on my ATAR?

For example, if I would get a score of 90 if I rank first for internals. Let’s say I rank top 15-30, imagine a big gap of marks from 30 to 31, how drastic of a drop off would my marks be?

Thank you guys so much,

 

[wollongong warrior]

School scaling? Imho you should look at your school's rank as a vague indicator of what level your cohort will perform at during hsc
It doesn't explicitly affect your atar, not that I know of at least (i.e. nesa doesn't look at your school's rank and be like "yup gg tafe for you"), but it does mean that if your school ranks lower, you should put in more effort to not depend on your cohort as much

Let’s say I rank top 15-30, imagine a big gap of marks from 30 to 31, how drastic of a drop off would my marks be?

Can you clarify what you mean here? Do you mean 'I' as in your school? If so, there is no fixed 'drop off'

 

[gammahydroxybutyrate]

Hi guys,

I’m new to this platform but I just wanted to ask you guys for your insights into these problems.

I’m currently in year 11, studying in a school that ranks in the top 100. I’m studying Maths Extension, English Extension, Biology, Chemistry and Business Studies.

Many of my peers, especially in the non-extension subjects, are not willing to put in the effort into the course. I am worried that if I were to not rank 1st in my cohort for the subject, say I rank 10, would school scaling have a large negative impact on my ATAR?

For example, if I would get a score of 90 if I rank first for internals. Let’s say I rank top 15-30, imagine a big gap of marks from 30 to 31, how drastic of a drop off would my marks be?

Thank you guys so much,

My understanding of how it works is that your cohort will receive a range of marks in the external HSC exams e.g. in a cohort of 4, your cohort scores 97, 87, 82, 50. Those are those people's respective external marks. However, for the internal marks, if you were ranked 3rd in this cohort your internal mark would be 82 after moderation. If you were ranked 4th, I assume it's too far of an outlier and they wouldn't give you an internal mark of 50.

If you rank first in your school for internals, your internal mark will be the highest mark your cohort scored on the external exam. If you rank 16th you will receive the 16th highest external score as your internal mark. In other words, if your entire cohort bombs an exam and you aren't ranked first, you will be dragged down hard.

 

[WeiWeiMan]

If you rank first in your school for internals, your internal mark will be the highest mark your cohort scored on the external exam. If you rank 16th you will receive the 16th highest external score as your internal mark. In other words, if your entire cohort bombs an exam and you aren't ranked first, you will be dragged down hard.

This is unfortunately incorrect and only applies if you're ranked 1st or ranked last (doesn't always apply).

https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/hsc/about-HSC/moderation

 

[liamkk112]

Hi guys,

I’m new to this platform but I just wanted to ask you guys for your insights into these problems.

I’m currently in year 11, studying in a school that ranks in the top 100. I’m studying Maths Extension, English Extension, Biology, Chemistry and Business Studies.

Many of my peers, especially in the non-extension subjects, are not willing to put in the effort into the course. I am worried that if I were to not rank 1st in my cohort for the subject, say I rank 10, would school scaling have a large negative impact on my ATAR?

For example, if I would get a score of 90 if I rank first for internals. Let’s say I rank top 15-30, imagine a big gap of marks from 30 to 31, how drastic of a drop off would my marks be?

Thank you guys so much,

there isn't exactly such a thing as school rank being directly involved in ur alignment/moderation/scaling of marks. usually these are the things that are:

• Cohort strength
  • Stronger cohorts will recieve higher marks, pulling up internal marks that may have been otherwise average - eg if ur internal mark was 75, and u were ranked 2nd, but the 2nd highest external mark was 85, u will receive a higher mark than 75 (there is a bit of variation due to mean distance between marks and some other technicalities so probably not exactly 85, but in general, stronger cohort = better internal mark).
  • Be aware that outliars are usually not a factor - for example if someone absolutely bombs their exams, they are usually not included in the moderation of marks
• Individual ranking
  • If you are ranked higher, naturally the internal mark you recieve will be higher than those below you
• The gaps between the marks in rankings
  • If cohorts receive similar external marks with low amounts of distance between them, and the cohort performs well, then you are advantaged as the moderated marks will also have low amounts of distance between them - eg rank 1 might get 95, then rank 2 might get 93, rank 3 might get 91, and so on (not as simple as this, just to illustrate the point)

school ranking is basically just an indicator for the cohort strength and the gaps between the marks in rankings. even then, one year might have a very strong cohort but the year after a weaker one, causing the school ranking to be higher than the cohort strength. for example my school had a cohort which ranked the school in the top 100, yet my cohort only ranked the school in the top 170. so as a whole you're better off just judging the cohort rather than the school ranking, depending on the variation of the school ranking.

if your peers aren't willing to put in the effort, then straight up u just got to put in more effort than them to rank higher lol, if u want a really high atar then u really need to not rely on ur cohort and work really hard. ideally, u would like to be at least in the top 3-5 ranking for each subject to achieve a very high atar, again depends on the cohort strength. obviously though, rank 1 is the best possible, as you will automatically recieve the highest internal mark. like i said my school is not necessarily the top school in the state (although my cohort really wasn't that bad), so in all of my classes i gunned for the top spot as this basically secures ur internal mark, so long as u or at least one other person performs well. this even saved my english standard mark where i got 77 in the hsc, yet someone got 95 and as i was rank 1 this became my internal mark, so then my hsc mark became 86.

i would say though, decide on which range of atar u want. there's no point gunning for number 1 in every class if u just want around 90, so long as u can stay in the top ranks. though obviously if u want 99+ u pretty much have to get number 1 in every class (i mean, u are trying to be in the top 1% of students in the country, so u better be in the top students at ur school).

 

[gammahydroxybutyrate]

This is unfortunately incorrect and only applies if you're ranked 1st or ranked last (doesn't always apply).

https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/hsc/about-HSC/moderation

my bad, was ranked first in most subjects

 

[iane]

Thank you all for taking time and helping me understand these concepts.