Hurley said the data showed the ATAR disproportionately rewarded students from privileged backgrounds, while compounding barriers faced by regional, low-income, Indigenous and disabled students.
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A 2023 government report found that the presence at universities of several of the latter groups was going backwards.
Mitchell Institute report co-author Melinda Hildebrandt said while she and her colleagues were not calling for ATAR to be abolished, other post-high school study pathways should be given more attention.
“It’s not for us to say to abolish [ATAR],” Hildebrandt said.
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“There will still be a place for it in the system, for those certain kinds of courses at particular kinds of universities. But its stranglehold on the system, also maybe the imagination of people – let’s abolish that idea.”
Solicitor Meredith Hunt has not thought about her ATAR in years, despite being shattered after her 2017 VCE results gave her an admissions score well below what she needed to follow her dreams into a law degree.
But she said she soon put her disappointment behind her and enrolled in an advanced diploma of legal practice, which led to a law/criminology degree, and then her dream job at the Office of Public Prosecutions.
Hunt says she is living proof that students can achieve their ambitions without a high ATAR. And while the lawyer does not think about her score much these days, she too believes there must be a better way.
“I don’t think you should ever rank people, and especially young, impressionable teenagers, in a way that [ATAR] does,” Hunt said.
“Everyone’s got their own strengths and talents and motivations and inspirations, and I think that at that time in your life, there’s just a lot of stress put on what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, and you’re still trying to grow up and figure it out.
“I don’t know what can be done to the ATAR system, but I think that it’s something that definitely needs to be looked at.”
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