National Tertiary Admissions System

In 1995 the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MYCEETYA) accepted a report from its taskforce on a national tertiary admissions system which established core elements of a national system as detailed below.

This system is administered through ACTAC, the Australasian Conference of Tertiary Admissions Centres, which conference comprises all state-based admissions centres, the University of Tasmania, Charles Darwin University and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

Common dates:

  • The last working day in September for the submission of on-time applications.

    Agreed dates in January for the publication of, and response to, main round offers such that applicants who have applied in more than one state/territory are not required to respond until all main offers have been made.

Release of year 12 results:

The agreed latest target date for release of results to students was set at the first working day of January. The purpose of this element is to ensure a reasonable period for applicants to change their preferences prior to main round offers. Results are released in all states/territories, as a matter of course, in December.

National approach to the calculation of tertiary entrance rank equivalences across states in 1997:

This was achieved by instituting a methodology which converts each state’s/ territory’s measure of overall achievement into a rank representative of the whole relevant age group (16 - 20 year-olds) rather than year 12 candidates, thus facilitating an equivalence, both between states/territories and over years. This rank, the Interstate Transfer Index, ITI, has been adopted by all states/territories, except Queensland, and is their TER,/ UAI/ ENTER. A description of this methodology is outlined below.

This methodology, which is based on the relationship between a rank in the whole population and the probability that an individual is a candidate, was adopted by the taskforce in May 1997 and is formally monitored by a national group of technical experts reporting to ACTAC.

This group has also developed for ACTAC a common table for converting IB results into local measures of overall achievement which will be used by the majority of states/territories for 2008 admissions.

Eligibility of interstate applicants:

The notion of ‘home state rule’ was adopted meaning that an applicant deemed eligible for university entrance in their home state/territory is automatically eligible nationally subject to TER and individual course requirements. Admissions centres refer to tables of interstate subject equivalents so that interstate applicants are not disadvantaged where institutions have established prerequisites at course level. Some centres also include subjects completed interstate in local measures of overall achievement calculations where appropriate arrangements have been made with certifying authorities to convert those subjects into local scores.

ACTAC also coordinates the following functions which underpin the successful operation of the national system:

Exchange of year 12 results:

  • Each state’s and territory’s year 12 results and overall measures of achievement are annually transferred to a national data base so that current, and prior year, applicants can be automatically considered without any action required by individual interstate applicants.

Exchange of university transcripts:

  • A national system of automatically accessing university data bases and transferring records for non-year 12 (ARTS) has been in operation since 1996/97. Approximately 90,000 records are transferred electronically between admissions centres each year.

Special Tertiary Admissions Test National database:

  • A national database of STAT results has also been established. These results are primarily used to adjudge the ability and potential of mature-age applicants without formal qualifications. These tests were developed by ACER for admissions centres.

ACTAC monitors annually the application rates of interstate year 12 applicants and periodically examines enrolment patterns. These rates have been found to be very constant over a lengthy period of time.

 ACTAC is in the process of reviewing terminology in each state’s Guides with a view towards standardizing, over time, commonly used terms and expressions to better facilitate understanding of state/territory systems for interstate applicants.

National approach to the calculation of tertiary entrance rank equivalences across states/territories in 1997 - methodology

The original proposal, as endorsed by MCEETYA, was a theoretical model to obtain the table of equivalences. However, the availability and analysis of various data sets that have subsequently become available has resulted in the use of a more empirically based methodology.

Analysis of the available data sets indicated that the assumption of the original proposal, namely that an age-cohort rank ie a ranking based on the numbers in each state’s/territory’s underlying age cohort was applicable to the top 20% of candidates was invalid, and that the participation rate ie the number of students from each state who attain the measure of overall achievement, had an effect on the degree to which the age-cohort rank was suitable.

It is now evident that participation rates vary considerably between the states/territories, from a low of about 30% to a high of about 90%. It has also been shown that participation rates can vary within regions of one state/territory, between genders, and between years.

Taking account of different participation rates is an essential element of the methodology, as the reasons for the variation in participation rates include the differing education systems in the different states/territories.

The methodology for incorporating the participation rate and obtaining a smooth curve for the state TER to ITI, as originally suggested by Professor Tim Brown, was based on the NSW data available. The smooth curve was suggested when the actual year 12 ranks of the NSW students were mapped against the ranks of the same students in the entire year 10 population. This mapping indicated a smooth nature of variation of participation rate (matriculation percentage) to ITI, and also that the matriculation percentage was not constant over any appreciable range at the top of the matriculation percentage range. When the matriculation percentage rate was transformed logistically to obtain the logits (the natural logarithm of the ration of participants in year 12 to non matriculants for that particularity), it was found that the scatter plot of logits versus actual score exhibited a high degree of linearity, suggesting a regression line could be found. The regression line was originally determined using weights proportional to the number of students getting each score, but could equally be determined by logistic regression. This basic approach was successfully used (by New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia/Northern Territory) for participation rates above 50%, and could be modified (as for Western Australia) for participation rates below 40. Fortunately, the state with the lowest participation rate of 30%, namely Tasmania, was able to find an alternative methodology based on the empirical data available to it.

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