ATAR & RANK ??

[Ed_ward]

HI,

"What is important with SACs is not the percentage but your ranking in relation to the cohort."
WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Even if I get an 90% but I am ranked 7th I won't get a good atar?

Thanks

[hums_student]

"What is important with SACs is not the percentage but your ranking in relation to the cohort."
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It means that your ATAR is not directly determined by how well you do on your SACs and end of year exams, but rather how well you do in comparison to everyone else in your cohort. Everything in VCE is dependent on rankings, including your study scores and ATAR. Receiving a 99.95 doesn't mean you got full marks on your SACs and exams, it just means that you did better than 99.95% of the cohort.
Same for SACs, if you get 70% on a SAC, but managed to outperform everyone else in your cohort, then you're rank 1, which typically matters more than what score you specifically got as each school has different SACs anyway.

Even if I get an 90% but I am ranked 7th I won't get a good atar?

Not necessarily. Assuming you're talking about your SACs here, it depends on how strong your cohort is (and also how many people are in your cohort, rank 7 in a class of 12 people is very different to rank 7 in a subject with 100 kids enrolled at the same school). If you're ranked 7th in a subject at your school, and everyone in your school does really well in the final exam, everyone's SAC marks go up and vice versa.

[Ed_ward]

So, if I got it right, SAC's score, higher they, higher are my chances to get ranked among first and therefore get a good ATAR???

Also, what happen if you do really bad on the GAT exam but good on final exams?? (does the GAT matter?)

[Lear]

So, if I got it right, SAC's score, higher they, higher are my chances to get ranked among first and therefore get a good ATAR???

Also, what happen if you do really bad on the GAT exam but good on final exams?? (does the GAT matter?)

Yes. Higher SACs mean higher likelihood of being ranked higher.

The GAT is primarily used for your derived score and the comparison of schools in terms of ability for SAC scaling. I've also heard that doing bad on your final exams but doing well on GAT triggers a remarking of your exam paper. Overall, it is in your best interest to do well on the GAT. However, if you do well on final exams your GAT should not matter too much.

[www]

You also need to remember that you ATAR isn't solely dependent on your SACs - final exams usually make up 50% (give or take depending on the subject) of the study score while SACs make up around 12.5%, so the main thing is to do well on the exam, firstly because it weighs so much and also since if you do really well on the exam, your SAC scores may get scaled up, while on the other hand if you do poorly SAC scores may go down.

It's also good to note here that you retain your exam mark - whatever you get on the exam is what you keep. It's only your GA's for SACs that can go up or down (based on individual and cohort performance), meaning it is not over until you finally sit that exam and get a grade for it.

Getting a high rank doesn't necessarily mean a high study score, and getting a middle or 'low' (whatever that is to you) rank doesn't necessarily mean a low study score either!