As an aside, something in today’s news caught my eye. Australia has a fairly unique system for entry to Uni called the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) which is not a mark but a ranking against all other students in that age group (16 to 20 year olds). The scaling is done no matter what subjects studied for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) though some subjects result in a higher ranking on a scale between 0.00 and 99.95
If you want to study medicine for example you need and ATAR of something like 99 whereas to study for a Bachelor of Teaching you only need a minimum ATAR of 46.20.
The pandemic has thrown all that into question with many unis offering places before students have even taken their first HSC exam.
For example one student from a public school in Sydney’s inner west received three early offers — at Macquarie University, the Australian National University and the University of Technology Sydney — before ever setting foot in an exam room.
Two of the offers are unconditional, meaning she’s in regardless of how she performs.
The Pandemic has changed so much
