I'm so damn confused by the scaling, I know y'all just discussed it but like, is the HSC mark we get back different than the mark that affects our ATAR???
yes! basically, there's alignment, which determines your HSC mark for a subject. this is the thing on rawmarksdatabase, as far as I can tell. this whole process is done by
NESA.
your ATAR is calculated by
UAC, which has different values, and is where traditional "scaling" comes into play - i.e. how hard or easy a subject is. this is determined by a cohort's relative performance across all subjects, and uses the raw mark given to them by NESA to calculate an aggregate that they then internally use to rank everybody. remember, the ATAR is a percentile system!! (people forget a lot so I thought I'd put a reminder)
it sounds weird but makes more sense when you realise the HSC and the ATAR are run by two separate organisations for their own individual purposes - NESA only cares about graduating qualifications, whereas UAC attempts to transform these results into something universities can use for comparison in the admissions process.
