Clearly In ATAR

[honey-corowa]

Up until recently I was under the impression that achieving the clearly in ATAR guaranteed you a place in the course.

However this last weekend at Deakin I was told that they fill the course with those with the highest ATAR, and that in 2012 the lowest ATAR in the course was 60, despite the clearly in being 54.

Does this apply to all courses/any other courses? I'm confused!

[Dentistry]

I'm pretty sure that 'clearly-in' is the median ATAR that accepted a spot, so 50% were above it and 50% below. Are you sure that clearly-in wasn't from the year before ? I doubt that would be the clearly-in if no one below it got in.

[Professor Polonsky]

The clearly-in ATAR is just that - if you got it in that year, then you were guaranteed (i.e. you were clearly in) the course. In essence, it is the minimum ATAR required to be certain of a spot in a course (in that year - so last year's clearly-ins only apply for last year's applicants, but are generally a good guide, as kingpomba very correctly points out.)

Some people may be accepted below that ATAR (the middle band), which is usually around 20%. However, there is no guarantee of middle-band entry for any ATAR.

[slothpomba]

That's a misconception. ATAR's aren't actually set (few exceptions but lets not focus on those). They dont have a committee meet, throw darts at a board and set the ATAR on what it lands on. It really purely is a measure of supply and demand. The eligible applicant with the #1 highest score gets place #1, applicant with #2 highest score gets place #2 and so on until they fill how many students they are willing to take and think they can hold.

Obviously, it's thats very simplified and they adjust for things like SEAS, middle band and especially any courses with UC/folios ATAR's aren't all of the story. For your regular courses like BA or BSci thats how it basically works. People can be below the clearly in and still get in but it is a generally useful guide for what you should aim for. I'm not sure if it's actually the median like dentistry suggested, that would suggest a massive amount of people getting in under the clearly in which doesn't really make sense.

The only thing that makes last years ATAR useful at all is that demand TENDS to stay constant from year to year. Sometimes there are unexpected jumps or drops, i remember in my year the clearly in for UoM went up 5 whole points which is a pretty massive jump. They didn't really decide that ahead of time, it's just how it panned out.

TL;DR Useful guide based on who got in last year. It will be different this year. For most courses in most years differences between the years aren't big so thats why its a useful guide. Sometimes the jumps can be rather large though.