The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is a ranking system used in Australia to measure a student's academic performance relative to their peers in the same graduating year. It is a score between 0 and 99.95 and is used by universities and other higher education institutions to determine admission to undergraduate courses.
To complete the VCE, a student needs to complete at least 10 units of the Year 12 course (which is referred to as Unit 3 and Unit 4). This means a total five subjects. One of those subjects must be either English, English Literature, English Language or EAL. You can complete unit 3 and 4 in Year 11.
VCE students are able to study more than 10 units as well.
For VCE subjects, VCAA gives you a study score out of 50, often called your raw study score. It is based on your school assessments and exams, and shows how you performed compared with everyone else who took that subject. VTAC then scales each study score to produce a scaled study score, so results can be compared fairly across subjects. How much a score moves depends on the subject and the year.
Your English subject and your best three other subjects count in full, plus 10% of your fifth and sixth. Any further subjects aren't used.
Your ATAR is based on your aggregate. Your aggregate adds your English scaled study score and your next three best scaled study scores, plus 10% of your fifth and sixth if you have them. No more than six subjects can contribute. Your aggregate is then ranked and converted to an ATAR.
It converts each study score into a scaled score using VTAC's 2025 Scaling Report, then adds your English, your next best three scaled scores and 10% of your fifth and sixth, following VTAC's subject-group rules. The total is matched to VTAC's 2025 Aggregate to ATAR table. Scaling changes every year, so treat the result as an estimate.
If you have more questions about ATAR, you should check out our blog where we cover everything you need to know. For one-on-one help, talk to our VCE tutors
