The 2011 Tertiary Entrance Statement   The 2011 Tertiary Entrance Statement was released by SATAC and the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training on 21 December 2011. The SACE/NTCET for 2012 entry section of the SATAC website is designed to help you understand how the contents of your Tertiary Entrance Statement were calculated.  You can follow the links to the left for information on the rules for calculating the ATAR, TAFE SA Selection Score and information on how scaled scores are produced. These links also provide information on issues such as Counting Restrictions and Precluded Combinations.  You can also refer to SATAC's Tertiary Entrance booklet which has additional information about SACE subjects, and whether they are Tertiary Admissions Subjects, and are subject to any rules regarding Counting Restrictions and Precluded Combinations. Who gets a Tertiary Entrance Statement? The Tertiary Entrance Statement is only produced for those candidates who receive an overall grade of E- or better for a Stage 2 SACE/NTCET subject in 2011. I can’t understand the scaled score I received for some of my grades The numeric measures of your performance in each of your individual subjects are called scaled scores. These are used to calculate your ATAR and TAFE SA Selection Score. Scaled scores are out of 20.0 for 20 credit subjects and out of 10.0 for 10 credit subjects. Follow the “Scaling” link to the left to find out how scaling is undertaken. So students, parents and teachers can have some context regarding the relationship between the A+ to E- grades and scaled scores, South Australia’s Scaling Monitoring Committee (which includes membership from the universities who own the scaling process) has provided SATAC with a summary of scaling outcomes for 2011 in the table below. It shows, for each grade in the A+ to E- range, the average scaled score attained across all 20 credit Tertiary Admissions Subject results.  It is intended to be a guide to what was a “reasonable” outcome of the scaling process.  Please note it is not what candidates should expect their actual scaled scores to be.  Actual scaled scores will be higher or lower according to the subject attempted.  Also, because the scaled score is derived from the results from the individual assessment components, two candidates with the same grade (say, B+) in the same subject will get different scaled scores.  This might be because the numerical contribution of the externally assessed component might be different, or the candidate whose underlying results were B+/B/B-/A- will have a different raw score from the candidate who had B-/B/B+/A- due to the varying weightings of the assessment components. Grade level   Average scaled score for a 20 credit tertiary admissions subject A+  19.69 A   18.58 A-  17.26 B+  15.88 B   14.49 B-  13.14 C+  11.82 C   10.49 C-  9.30 D+  8.00 D   6.30 D-  4.70 E+  3.17 E   2.48 E-  0.85   Please note the universities and TAFE SA do not publish the scaling outcomes of individual subjects. Scaling operates in the background to ensure that students can choose subjects with the assurance that differences in subject objectives, content and assessment practices are accounted for when subject results are used in the calculation of the university aggregate and TAFE SA Selection Score. What are bonus points? Bonus points come in two varieties: subject bonus points and bonus points that are associated with access and equity schemes. All bonus points are added to your university aggregate and a new selection rank (equivalent to a revised ATAR) is calculated for use in the selection process. There are no bonus points for TAFE, but for some courses additional points are added for completion of ‘preferred subjects’ at SACE Stage 1 or 2 level. Details of the university schemes are published in the Tertiary Entrance booklet. Bonus points are not included in your ATAR. Is there a deadline if I wish to change my preferences? If you have applied by the equal consideration date (Friday 3 December for Uni applications and Tuesday 30 November for TAFE SA applications you can change your preferences (including adding new preferences) up until midnight Monday 9 January for Unis and midnight Wednesday 4 January for TAFE SA, and still be guaranteed equal consideration with other on-time applicants for those preferences. What should I keep in mind if I want to change my preferences? Your preferences should reflect the order in which you would like to be considered for an offer. SATAC will offer you the highest preference for which you are both eligible and competitive. If you do not receive an offer to your first preference then you will be considered for an offer to your second preference as though it was your first, and so on for your other preferences.  No other applicant will be offered a place in a course simply because they have it listed as a higher preference than you. The cut-offs for 2011 entry published in this year’s University Guide are only intended to be used as a general guide to what they could be this year. They are the lowest selection rank (ATAR adjusted for bonuses) with which an applicant gained entry last year using their year 12 qualification. The cut-off reflects supply and demand for a course and as such they are historical information. The number of places available in a course may change, the number of applicants may change and so the cut-off may change from year to year.