How the SACE ATAR is calculated

Each Stage 2 subject is worth 20 credits (a full-year subject) or 10 credits (a semester subject). You receive a grade from A+ to E-, which the SACE Board arrives at by combining school assessment (70%) with external assessment (30%) after moderation.

SATAC turns each grade into a raw score out of 15 for a 20-credit subject, then scales it to a score out of 20 (or out of 10 for a 10-credit subject).

Scaling adjusts each subject for the strength of the students who took it, and is recalculated every year. SATAC publishes the aggregate-to-ATAR conversion table but not a per-subject scaling table, so calculators have to model per-subject scaling. Ours uses a representative model for scaling and SATAC's official conversion table for the final step.

Your University Aggregate is built from 90 credits of Tertiary Admissions Subjects (TAS):

• Your best three 20-credit TAS results (60 credits), taken in full.
• A 30-credit "flexible option": the best combination of your remaining results, which can include a fourth 20-credit subject plus a 10-credit subject, or three 10-credit subjects.
• Activating Identities and Futures (AIF), compulsory from 2025, can only count in the flexible option and cannot be combined with Research Project B.
• Recognised Studies such as VET can fill up to 20 credits of the flexible option.

The maximum aggregate is 90. SATAC ranks every aggregate against the SA and NT age cohort to produce ATARs from 99.95 down to 30.00 in 0.05 steps.

A student completes five 20-credit subjects with grades of English A-, Mathematical Methods B+, Chemistry B, Psychology A and Legal Studies B+, plus AIF (10 credits) at A.

1. Each grade becomes a raw score out of 15 and is scaled to a score out of 20. Suppose the scaled scores are Psychology 17.8, English 17.1, Methods 16.9, Legal Studies 15.6 and Chemistry 15.2, with AIF scaling to 8.4 out of 10.
2. The best three 20-credit subjects are Psychology, English and Methods: 17.8 + 17.1 + 16.9 = 51.8.
3. The flexible option (30 credits) takes the best remaining combination: Legal Studies (20 credits, 15.6) plus AIF (10 credits, 8.4) = 24.0.
4. University Aggregate = 51.8 + 24.0 = 75.8 out of 90.
5. SATAC converts 75.8 using that year's table. In recent years an aggregate in the mid-70s has corresponded to an ATAR in the mid-to-high 80s.

• Grades are bands, so the jump from a B+ to an A- is worth far more than a few extra marks that stay inside the same band. Find out where the band boundaries sit in each subject.
• School assessment is 70% of every grade. There is no late-year exam that can rescue a weak year of coursework.
• A strong grade in a lower-scaling subject beats a weak grade in a high-scaling one.