How does the ATAR work?

Dr. Jess 😉

hey guys, i was wondering how the ATAR works. Because I checked out ATAR calculators and my friends said they arent accurate.

ATARSaver

Dr. Jess 😉

Yeah so how it works is like this:

You finish your ATAR subjects
Then QTAC scales your raw scores (calculated by QCAA) into Scaled Scores (which are calculated by QTAC)
QTAC takes your best 5 subjects
They then calculate an aggregate score which is essentially the scaled scores of the best 5 subjects added up
Then they all convert your aggregate score to the ATAR (this is the conversion that most ATAR calculators don't have access to and as @FinFin-2ndYearUni mentioned they change slightly every year so they have to roughly estimate this conversion based on aggregate scores they already have and the associated ATARs).

Also, we have this exclusive community that we just set up recently and its specifically for Queensland students. You can ask as many questions as you need and it has a ton of resources. We're doing a holiday workshops for the core subjects starting in December with worksheets and questions given afterwards. No stress to join haha but its definitely worth joining especially if you're in year 12: https://www.skool.com/qcaa-atar-saver-community/

Good luck with year 12!

FinFin-2ndYearUni

Yeah, the ATAR calculators aren't always going to be super accurate, because the calculations change almost every year, based on student performances in each subject. It will give you a rough idea on what your ATAR will be, but I wouldn't rely on it too much.