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A decision to switch from the University Admission Index (UAI) to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) means that New South Wales students will no longer be able to achieve a mark of 100 in their Higher School Certificate. The new top mark is 99.95.
The changes will extend the opportunity to disappoint parents to all students, regardless of their exceptional ability.
Until now, at least a dozen students were scoring 100.0 in their HSC—and forcing mums and dads to focus their disapproval on their child’s decision to “throw away” their marks by enrolling in Fine Arts.
Explaining the decision to discontinue the 100 mark, the Universities Admissions Centre complained that it had provided all these opportunities but had been unable to get through to the class of 2009. The UAC invited students unhappy with the changes to walk away, don’t listen, that’s fine, I don’t care anymore.
Universities say that, in the wake of the changes, no student should worry that it will impact their chances of getting into the course of their choice. Students should instead be terrified that their degree will be worthless by the time they get into the workplace.
The removal of the best mark follows an earlier reform, under which all the best jobs were phased out in 2007 and replaced with “Officeworks Customer Service Assistant Level 2”.
