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

[brent012]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the only practical thing which distinguishes between a student who was assessed on 4 units of history, 4 units of English and only 2 units of maths, who has upon recieving their 90+ atar, realised that there is no money in English or History and decided to apply to a science, maths or engineering course with a mark that in no way reflects their potential to perform in said subject- and another student who got 1 or 2 marks lower than the history/english student but was assessed on Physics and 4 Unit maths, subjects which are actually relevant to the degree.

In an ideal world, yes. But HSC subjects are as a whole very different from their university equivalents and some bonus point schemes make little sense. While UNSW aren't as lenient as all the other universities and aren't giving them away per se there are still some weird choices. It's not very hard to cap out the 5 bonus points with a B Commerce at UNSW with maths alone for example (hypothetical band 4 in english + b6 and e4 in maths and ext1 or e4s in both extensions). Yet a student who got band 6s in business studies and economics would not get any bonus points for them.

Another example is computer science or software engineering, no bonus marks are awarded for Software Design, IPT, IT Vet or Multimedia. UNSW will say that is because those subjects lack academic rigour and success does not neccesarily transfer into uni. But that is a joke because Physics is a common subject on UNSW's hsc plus bonus points list (including in comp sci and soft eng!), anybody who has done first year university physics will confirm that they are nothing alike and that majority of HSC physics was roting content while uni physics is all (applied) maths.

Then there is engineering studies, it's not a common subject, but from my understanding they do learn the basics of content which is covered in first year engineering courses and would be sure to attract budding engineers at schools where it is offered. UNSW do not offer a single bonus point towards engineering for a band 6 in that subject.

Bonus points are a good idea but executed horribly. At other universities (all of them except Usyd) they are so attainable that they only serve to inflate cut offs and do not differentiate between students, and at UNSW they appear to award students who have picked the 4u, phys, chem and advanced english combo for the most part. It's also worth noting that majority of the subjects i've mentioned in this post that UNSW seem to not recognise actually have bonus points allocated to them in the ADFA (part of UNSW) equivalent courses. Maybe the defence force aren't interested in tutoring college products?

 

[LoveHateSchool]

IM NOT SURE ERRRMAAAGWWWADDDD

i wos just looking at all my options at usyd cos its closer to me house n fuk so many grads options to work in gov + i can do grad certs and dips to get in a lot of dese

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Health-Policy

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Crosscultural-Communication

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Human-Resource-Management-and-Industrial-Relations

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-International-Studies

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Cultural-Studies

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Health-Communication

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Human-Rights

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Development-Studies

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-International-Security

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Applied-Linguistics

http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Master-of-Genetic-Counselling (if i want to do sum study by myself)

halp

Big list of 11 there-I'd slowly try and cross one off out of the running at a time, until you are down to three.

So your undergrad was in international studies at UNSW?

 

[Emily Howard]

yeah ill think ill cross off all da expensive ones

yup, grueling 4 years of essay writin fo a student better at science

 

[Frostbitten]

So, is this implying that before any bonus points or EAS points a raw ATAR of 80 is required or what?

 

[someth1ng]

But that is a joke because Physics is a common subject on UNSW's hsc plus bonus points list (including in comp sci and soft eng!), anybody who has done first year university physics will confirm that they are nothing alike and that majority of HSC physics was roting content while uni physics is all (applied) maths.

At uni, at least for first year, physics still has quite a few qualitative parts to it - at USyd (and presumably most Go8 universities), the quantitative to qualitative (if those are the right words to use here) would be around 65:35 but in HSC, it's probably more around 40:60. Perhaps this is to help the transition from high school to university and act as a stepping stone to real physics but to me, the main difference is the difficulty of the course.

 

[brent012]

At uni, at least for first year, physics still has quite a few qualitative parts to it - at USyd (and presumably most Go8 universities), the quantitative to qualitative (if those are the right words to use here) would be around 65:35 but in HSC, it's probably more around 40:60. Perhaps this is to help the transition from high school to university and act as a stepping stone to real physics but to me, the main difference is the difficulty of the course.

At UTS i'd say it was at least 90% maths, all qualitative questions were just testing the ground knowledge you need to know to properly apply or understand why you are using the formulas essentially. It was multiple choice (supposedly with checked working out lol) though which may contribute to the higher ratio of maths.

Either way, i'm sure the content was completely different to the HSC Physics content which had a high portion of history. 3 people I know did HSC Physics and a couple may have even got bonus marks for it but they all epic failed Physics 1A at UNSW.

 

[someth1ng]

Yeah, the qualitative questions are the question openers. At USyd, there's no MC for physics - it's just easy short answer questions which make up most of the qualitative questions of the exam.

 

[brent012]

Yeah, the qualitative questions are the question openers. At USyd, there's no MC for physics - it's just easy short answer questions which make up most of the qualitative questions of the exam.

It's a double edged sword. If they really did check working out there was no positives lol, but I suspect they were lenient or didn't check it. Either way there were no marks for working out. The other problem was that most of the options were common mistakes.