I’m proof: You don’t need a selective school and tutoring to get a monster ATAR

April 29, 2026 — 7:30pm

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Magicians never reveal their tricks. This is to preserve that sense of wonder, that awe, the anticipation for the reveal. When it comes to the “magic” surrounding the calculation of the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), the answer is in plain sight. However, the truth remains shrouded in mystery.

Playground gossip tends to echo the narrative that the school a student attended has a major impact on their ATAR calculation; at schools where students typically don’t perform well overall, high-performing students are disadvantaged, and at schools with higher HSC marks overall, all students’ marks are lifted. There is also the misconception that one’s ATAR may be lower if they attended a public or non-selective school, or if they had forgone tutoring.

As city parents spend a fortune on tutoring and sweat their selective school choices ahead of Friday’s entrance exam, I am here to tell you this: a regional, non-selective, non-tutored, public school student can achieve Band 6 results and an ATAR of 97.65. I know this because that student is me.

The mystery surrounding the equity and calculation of the ATAR is rife. I’d received mixed answers from my teachers on the “magic” going on behind the scenes and what they predicted my ATAR to be. My cohort held the misconception that the rank we would achieve would be ill-fated. We frantically applied for early entry schemes, believing alternative pathways were our only hope for tertiary studies.

Despite this, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) is transparent about how the ATAR is calculated. In its FAQs on the calculation, whether a student’s school affects their ATAR is clearly answered: “While your school and the students around you can influence your learning, the ATAR calculation itself does not consider the school you attended. Your ATAR is based solely on the marks you achieved, and no other information is used.”

Ilia missed out on selective school – until he found another way in

NESA has affirmed this fact in........

© The Sydney Morning Herald