ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) Requirements & Prerequisites
Everything you need to know before registering for the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), eligibility, cost, format, and what to expect on exam day.
Cost
Included in school fees
Provider
State Education Authorities
Validity
Lifetime
Available
Australia
Education
Check official exam requirements
Experience
1-3 years of hands-on experience recommended
Specific Requirements
- Completion of an Australian Year 12 qualification. Each state authority sets its own certificate: the HSC in NSW, the VCE in Victoria, the QCE in Queensland, the SACE or NTCET in South Australia and the Northern Territory, and the WACE in Western Australia.
- New South Wales: satisfactory completion of at least four subject areas, with the ATAR calculated from an aggregate of scaled marks across 10 units comprising the best 2 units of English plus the best 8 remaining units.
- Victoria: successful completion of the VCE, satisfaction of minimum tertiary entrance requirements, and at least four VCE study scores in an acceptable combination, one of which must be English, English Language, Literature or English as an Additional Language.
- Queensland: five General subjects at Units 3 and 4, or four General subjects plus one Applied subject or a VET course at AQF Certificate III or higher, plus a C grade or better in an English subject, with results accumulated within a five-year period.
- South Australia and the Northern Territory: qualification for the SACE or NTCET, at least 90 credits of Tertiary Admissions Subjects and Recognised Studies at Stage 2 with at least 60 of those credits from 20-credit subjects or valid subject pairs, and compliance with the precluded combination and counting restriction rules.
- Western Australia: at least four scaled scores, accumulated over up to five consecutive years with each course counted only once.
- No fee for the ATAR itself. The rank is derived from results already earned; the costs that arise are the tertiary admissions centre's course application processing fee, published annually by each centre, and optional services such as a printed statement.
- Registration where required. Queensland students must create their own account in the QTAC ATAR Portal, and Queensland students applying interstate must register so QTAC can share the rank with other admissions centres.
- International Baccalaureate students receive no ATAR. SATAC converts an IB score into an IB Admissions Score and then into a Combined Rank, which it states is the same across Australia; VTAC calculates a Notional ATAR for Victorian IB Diploma students and a Derived IB Rank for some students who complete the programme without qualifying for the Diploma.
Number of Questions
Set per subject. The HSC Mathematics Advanced paper is worth 100 marks in two sections: Section I carries objective-response questions to the value of 10 marks, and Section II carries 90 marks across 37 to 42 items, at least two of which are worth 4 or 5 marks. That gives 47 to 52 items in total. The Mathematics Advanced paper also shares 20 to 25 marks of common items with the Mathematics Standard 2 paper, distributed across both sections.
Duration
There is no single ATAR examination. The rank is built from Year 12 subject results, each of which has its own examination. HSC Mathematics Advanced, for example, allows 3 hours plus 10 minutes reading time, so 180 minutes of writing. Victorian written examinations run across a fixed period each year: VCAA has set 26 October to 17 November 2027 for written examinations, with the General Achievement Test on 17 June 2027 and the Extended Investigation Critical Thinking Test on 28 July 2027. Individual VCE papers vary widely, from 75 minutes for Mathematical Methods Examination 1 to 195 minutes for English, and every VCE examination commences with a 15-minute reading period unless otherwise specified.
Question Format
Objective-response questions, used in HSC Section I papers, Short-answer and extended-response written questions carrying multiple marks, sometimes in parts, Extended essays and analytical responses, as in the 195-minute VCE English examination, Oral examinations, held in Victoria for Languages between 4 and 31 October 2027, Performance examinations in dance, drama, theatre studies and music, The Auslan Interactive Sign examination and Sign Comprehension and Sign Production examinations, preceded by 10 minutes of reading and viewing time, A computer-based Critical Thinking Test for VCE Extended Investigation, School-based assessment tasks, which NESA requires schools to submit as a mark for every Year 12 candidate and which are moderated against exam performance
Passing Requirement
There is no pass mark. VTAC states that there is no pass or fail ATAR and that everyone who receives one has passed the VCE. What exists instead is a reporting floor: UAC records an ATAR between 0.00 and 30.00 as '30 or less', VTAC reports below 30.00 as 'less than 30', and QTAC reports below 30 as '30.00 or less'. Course-level thresholds are set by universities as lowest selection ranks, which VTAC states are produced by the selection process rather than fixed in advance.
How It Is Delivered
Paper-based written examinations in most subjects, with computer-based delivery for specific assessments such as the VCE Extended Investigation Critical Thinking Test. Oral and performance examinations are conducted in person at scheduled venues, with students issued individual examination advice slips and required to present photo identification. School-based assessment is conducted by the school across the year and submitted to the state authority.
Languages Offered
English for the great majority of subjects. VCAA requires all written responses to be in English unless the question book for that examination instructs otherwise., Target-language examinations exist for a long list of languages. VCAA schedules Armenian, Bengali, Bosnian, Chin Hakha, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Karen, Khmer, Macedonian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Swedish, Tamil and Turkish on a single day, alongside separate papers for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Classical Greek, Classical Hebrew, Auslan and Aboriginal Languages of Victoria.
Visit the official State Education Authorities certification page
Create an account and select your exam
Choose a test center or online proctoring option
Pay the exam fee and schedule your date
Score Scale
0.00 to 99.95, in increments of 0.05. QTAC describes this as a 2000-point scale reported in descending order from 99.95. There is no ATAR of 100, because a percentile rank cannot place a student above themselves. Underlying aggregates differ by state: a Victorian aggregate can range from 0 to over 210, a South Australian university aggregate has a maximum of 90.00 across the best 90 credits, and a Western Australian Tertiary Entrance Aggregate has a maximum of 430.
Score You Need
There is no pass mark. VTAC states that there is no pass or fail ATAR and that everyone who receives one has passed the VCE. What exists instead is a reporting floor: UAC records an ATAR between 0.00 and 30.00 as '30 or less', VTAC reports below 30.00 as 'less than 30', and QTAC reports below 30 as '30.00 or less'. Course-level thresholds are set by universities as lowest selection ranks, which VTAC states are produced by the selection process rather than fixed in advance.
How It Is Calculated
Two steps everywhere: build an aggregate from scaled subject results, then convert that aggregate to a percentile rank. Scaling comes first, and it adjusts for the ability of the cohort taking each subject rather than for the subject's difficulty: UAC scales each course so its mean and distribution match the mean and distribution its students achieve across all their subjects, and VTAC scales a study up when its students perform better in their other studies. The aggregate is then ranked against all candidates and mapped onto a percentile scale. SATAC adds a further step, adjusting the percentile rank for the participation rate it calculates from Australian Bureau of Statistics population data against the size of the cohort, so the rank reflects the whole age group rather than only those who sat Year 12. Scoring is compensatory within the aggregate, since a strong scaled score offsets a weak one, but conjunctive at the eligibility gate, since an English requirement must be met in every system.
When You Get Results
There is no unofficial result and no early score. UAC released 2025 NSW ATARs on 18 December 2025 from 9 a.m., emailing every student a link, sending it by SMS to UAC applicants, and requiring a NESA student number and UAC PIN to log in; it ran an ATAR Enquiry Centre from 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. on the day and for the following working days. VCAA has set final results available to students on 9 December 2027, with Victorian ATARs issued by VTAC in December. TISC publishes WA Year 12 examination results and the ATAR from late December in a Universities Admission Advice Letter, viewable until 1 March of the following year. If NESA supplies UAC with amended HSC results, the ATAR is recalculated automatically and the student notified by email.
In raw terms: Published as an aggregate to ATAR conversion table by each centre, updated annually. TISC's 2025 table gives the minimum Tertiary Entrance Aggregate for each ATAR: 127.4 for 30.00, 178.4 for 50.00, 197.2 for 60.00, 215.7 for 70.05, 237.9 for 80.00, 269.6 for 90.00, 295.3 for 95.00, 348.1 for 99.00 and 405.5 for 99.95. VTAC publishes its Aggregate to ATAR table on results release day and archives previous years. SATAC publishes its conversion table each December and states that historical tables are not a reliable method for predicting future ATARs because they do not account for changes in cohort performance.
- Two forms of valid ID (one government-issued with photo)
- Appointment confirmation email
- For online proctoring: webcam, microphone, clean desk, stable internet
What are the prerequisites for the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank)?
Completion of an Australian Year 12 qualification. Each state authority sets its own certificate: the HSC in NSW, the VCE in Victoria, the QCE in Queensland, the SACE or NTCET in South Australia and the Northern Territory, and the WACE in Western Australia.. New South Wales: satisfactory completion of at least four subject areas, with the ATAR calculated from an aggregate of scaled marks across 10 units comprising the best 2 units of English plus the best 8 remaining units.. Victoria: successful completion of the VCE, satisfaction of minimum tertiary entrance requirements, and at least four VCE study scores in an acceptable combination, one of which must be English, English Language, Literature or English as an Additional Language.. Queensland: five General subjects at Units 3 and 4, or four General subjects plus one Applied subject or a VET course at AQF Certificate III or higher, plus a C grade or better in an English subject, with results accumulated within a five-year period.. South Australia and the Northern Territory: qualification for the SACE or NTCET, at least 90 credits of Tertiary Admissions Subjects and Recognised Studies at Stage 2 with at least 60 of those credits from 20-credit subjects or valid subject pairs, and compliance with the precluded combination and counting restriction rules.. Western Australia: at least four scaled scores, accumulated over up to five consecutive years with each course counted only once.. No fee for the ATAR itself. The rank is derived from results already earned; the costs that arise are the tertiary admissions centre's course application processing fee, published annually by each centre, and optional services such as a printed statement.. Registration where required. Queensland students must create their own account in the QTAC ATAR Portal, and Queensland students applying interstate must register so QTAC can share the rank with other admissions centres.. International Baccalaureate students receive no ATAR. SATAC converts an IB score into an IB Admissions Score and then into a Combined Rank, which it states is the same across Australia; VTAC calculates a Notional ATAR for Victorian IB Diploma students and a Derived IB Rank for some students who complete the programme without qualifying for the Diploma..
How much does the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) cost?
The ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) exam costs Included in school fees. This includes the exam fee only, study materials are additional.
How do I register for the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank)?
Visit the official State Education Authorities certification page → Create an account and select your exam → Choose a test center or online proctoring option → Pay the exam fee and schedule your date
What should I bring to the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank)?
Two forms of valid ID (one government-issued with photo). Appointment confirmation email. For online proctoring: webcam, microphone, clean desk, stable internet.
Ready to prepare for ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank)?
Get the complete exam guide with study plan, tips, and practice questions.
View ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) Guide