UniSA offers entry pathway on three best SACE subjects

Places at UniSA will soon be available based on a student’s three best school subject scores. And Flinders will make offers on year 11 results.

A simpler way to gain a university place, based on just three school subjects, is being offered to students by UniSA from 2022.

The “guaranteed entry” pathway will be available for most degrees and has been created as an alternative to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank score.

Students will still need to pass their SACE and achieve a minimum ATAR of 50.

They must list UniSA as their first preference and the three subjects must be at SACE stage 2 level and be full-year subjects.

Different degrees will require various minimum combinations, ranging from three A grades to three Cs.

“ATARs are a means to producing a cut-off ranking in programs where there are quotas,” UniSA vice-chancellor David Lloyd said.

“It draws a line under who gets in and who doesn’t in those programs, based on relative performance.

UniSA vice-chancellor David Lloyd. Picture: Tom Huntley

“ATARs and other evaluations of aptitude are valuable tools in such circumstances.

“However, the vast majority of programs don’t have quotas limiting participation.”

Prof Lloyd said using ATARs as the means of entry in those instances “no longer make sense” if other sensible selection criteria could be fairly applied.

“Our grade-based entry scheme is wholly transparent. It guards against the notion of students choosing subjects to ‘maximise’ their ATAR, rather than choosing subjects they are genuinely interested in studying,” he said.

“And it means that ‘scaling’ – which is one of the many behind-the-scenes adjustments that happen in ATAR calculations – doesn’t have to be another unnecessary distraction for school leavers.”

The move comes as the SA Tertiary Admissions Centre, which makes uni offers on behalf of eight tertiary institutions including SA’s three main unis, has recorded a fall in domestic students wanting to enrol now for semester two.

SATAC will make 4706 offers, down 10.6 per cent on this time last year.

Flinders University vice-chancellor Colin Stirling said the sector-wide downturn could be because there had been a surge in domestic students signing up in semester one without taking a gap year after school. There was also the ongoing uncertainty of Covid-19.

Prof Stirling said Flinders had decided to repeat the pandemic-inspired option of year 12 students being provisionally offered a place for 2022 based on year 11 results.

Almost all students who used that pathway last year achieved ATARs above the cut-off anyway, he said.

Offers were conditional on passing SACE but helped ease some of the extra pressure on students caused by Covid disruptions.

“It’s not an offer that enables them to down tools and not bother,” he said.

Adelaide University also has extended the year 11 provisional offer system, but UniSA opposes the concept.