Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank

The Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER) is the national Australian tertiary entrance score, administered by Universities Australia (previously called the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee). It is designed to make it easy to compare entrance scores for students educated in different process of admission for university applicants from interstate.

Equivalence

The term ENTER is only used in Victoria, although the actual rank is identical and equivalent to the Universities Admission Index (UAI) used in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, and to the Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER) used in South Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and Western Australia. Queensland uses a different system called the Overall Position (OP), but conversion tables are published each year to convert the OP to or from an ENTER.

Non-school-leaver university applicants are selected using other criteria: usually previous results, or results in the Special Tertiary Admissions Test.

Each state's university and government education authorities determines the method of calculation of the ENTER or state-equivalent for students from that state, due to the historical differences between different state's education systems. However, these decisions are co-ordinated to ensure that the necessary equivalence is maintained (i.e. so that an ENTER of 90.00 from Victoria will indicate a sufficiently similar degree of attainment as a UAI of 90.00 from New South Wales, in spite of the differences in each rank's methods of application.)

Calculation

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) is the authority responsible for conducting assessments in Victoria. It determines Study Scores for each VCE Unit 3/4 subject successfully completed by a student, ranging from 0 to 50. It also determines whether a student has "satisfactorily" completed the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE).

For all students who satisfactorily complete the VCE and who meet certain other criteria for receiving an ENTER, VCAA provides the students' Subject Study Scores to the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC). VTAC then scales the Subject Study Scores to allow for cross-study calculations - that is, the Study Scores are adjusted up or down to take into account the strength of competition amongst the cohort of students studying the subject that year. Scaling is undertaken to ensure that each subject contributes equally to the ENTER.In other words, a 25 in English is equivalent to a 25 in Mathematical Methods or a 25 in any other VCE subject. The scaled Study Scores are referred to as "ENTER subject scores".

VTAC determines an ENTER for each student who satisfactorily completes at least one subject in the current year, and who has obtained VCE Study Scores in an English study and at least three other studies in an allowable combination at the Unit 3 & 4 level.

A student's overall ENTER is calculated as the total of:

* The ENTER subject score in an English subject (one of English, English Language, Literature or English as a Second Language)(any one of these subjects is compulsory for the VCE))
* The ENTER subject scores of the next three best subjects (the English study and these constitute the "Primary Four")
* Plus an increment of 10% of the next best two subjects (if available).
* additional studies such as Vocational Education and Training (VET) or tertiary extension studies may also be considered.

Candidates are ranked in order of these aggregates. The ENTER is the percentile ranking of each student's position on this list in steps of 0.05 ranging from 0.00 to 99.95. For instance, an ENTER of 80.00 indicates that the aggregate was higher than 80% of aggregates. Each 0.05 rank typically contains around 20 students, depending on the number of students in the cohort each year.

Ranks less than 30.00 are typically only disclosed as "less than 30", as the exact ranking at this low level is not deemed educationally useful and may be demoralising to the recipient.

ee also

* Tertiary Entrance Rank
* Universities Admission Index
* Victorian Certificate of Education
* Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre
* List of admissions tests
* University admission

References

* [http://www.vtac.edu.au/pdf/publications/abcscaling.pdf ABC of Scaling] (PDF), Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre, December 2005.

External links

* [http://www.vtac.edu.au/pdf/publications/enterbook.pdf VTAC publication: ENTER Into Tertiary Courses (PDF)]
* [http://www.acer.edu.au/tests/university/stat/intro.html Special Tertiary Admissions Test]