ATAR Calculator
- NSW
- HSC
- Updated for the 2025 HSC
How your ATAR is worked out, what scaling does, and where to get an official estimate.
Why we don’t run our own ATAR calculator
The Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) calculates the ATAR in NSW and publishes its scaling data each year. UAC asks that this data not be used for ATAR calculators, so rather than build an estimator on borrowed numbers, we explain how the ATAR works and point you to UAC’s official tool, ATAR Compass (opens in a new tab).
Four steps
How the ATAR is calculated
“The ATAR is a rank, not a mark,” as UAC puts it. It shows where you sit among everyone your age in NSW, not a score out of 100. An ATAR of 80.00, for example, places you about 20 per cent from the top of that group.
Your HSC marks
NESA reports an exam mark, a school assessment and an HSC mark for each course. For the ATAR, UAC works from the raw marks behind them, which are not reported to students.
Scaling
Each course's marks are adjusted for the overall academic strength of the students who took it, so a mark in one course can be fairly added to a mark in another. Your rank within each course stays the same.
The aggregate
Your scaled marks are added up across 10 units: the best 2 units of English plus your best 8 remaining units. In 2025 the aggregate was rounded to two decimal places, up from one.
The rank
Students are ordered by aggregate, the order is adjusted to represent everyone of HSC age in NSW, and the result is truncated to the nearest 0.05. That number, from 0 up to 99.95, is your ATAR.
What counts towards an ATAR
- At least 10 units of ATAR courses, including at least 2 units of English, three courses of 2 units or more, and four subjects.
- From 2025, ATAR courses are no longer split into Category A and Category B, so the old rule of at least 8 Category A units no longer applies.
- Courses can be built up over five years. If you repeat a course, only your last satisfactory attempt counts.
Source: UAC, Report on the Scaling of the 2025 NSW HSC (opens in a new tab), sections 2 and 3.
Scaling
What scaling does and doesn’t mean
Scaling exists so that students are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by the courses they choose. Most of what gets said about it in the playground misses that point.
You may have heard
Your ATAR is your average mark.
What UAC says
It is a rank showing where you sit against your age group. For a student in the middle of the pack, the ATAR is usually lower than their average HSC mark. The median ATAR in 2025 was 70.75.
You may have heard
Some subjects are always scaled down.
What UAC says
Scaling is worked out afresh every year. If the group of students taking a course changes, how that course scales changes with it.
You may have heard
You can't get a high ATAR if you take certain subjects.
What UAC says
UAC reports that there are students in every course who achieve high ATARs.
You may have heard
Your school or postcode affects your ATAR.
What UAC says
Neither does. The calculation uses only the marks NESA provides; no other information goes in.
You may have heard
You can work out your exact ATAR from your HSC marks.
What UAC says
Scaling uses raw marks, which are not released, and scaled marks are not reported to students either. UAC says there is no simple rule to convert HSC marks to an ATAR.
You may have heard
Doing more units will lift your ATAR.
What UAC says
Only your best 10 units count. Students who take more units tend to have higher ATARs, but UAC says you cannot assume that taking more units will raise yours.
Where effort goes
What you can actually control
Your place in each course
You can’t choose how a course scales, but you can work on where you finish within it. Scaling never reorders students inside a course, so a stronger result there carries through.
English, which always counts
Your best 2 units of English are in every ATAR, so English is worth steady attention all year. See English tutoring and our free HSC English resources.
Courses you can do well in
UAC’s advice is to choose courses for your interests, your strengths and your plans, not for how you think they will scale. If Maths is one of them, see Maths tutoring.
Want a plan for your strongest and weakest subjects?
Tell us the courses you’re taking and where you’d like more confidence, and we’ll suggest where tutoring could help.
ATAR questions
UAC scales each student's raw marks in every ATAR course, then adds the best 2 units of English to the best 8 remaining units to form an aggregate. In 2025 that aggregate was rounded to two decimal places. Students are ranked by aggregate, the ranks are adjusted to represent the whole HSC-aged population of NSW, and the result is truncated to the nearest 0.05. The ATAR runs from 0 up to 99.95.
UAC, which calculates the ATAR in NSW, has its own official tool, ATAR Compass, on the UAC website. UAC also says that requests to use its scaling data for ATAR calculators will generally not be granted, so we don't run a calculator of our own. Any estimate is a guide only, because scaling is worked out afresh each year.
Students choose different combinations of courses, so the same mark in two courses does not mean the same thing. Scaling adjusts each course's marks for the overall academic strength of the students who took it, so that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged by their choice of course. It is redone every year and never changes a student's rank within a course.
Yes. To be eligible for an ATAR in 2025, a student needed at least 10 units of ATAR courses, including at least 2 units of English, at least three courses of 2 units or more, and at least four subjects. The best 2 units of English always count towards the aggregate.
UAC releases ATARs in December, after NESA releases HSC results. For the 2025 HSC, ATARs were released on Thursday 18 December 2025. Students log in to the UAC website to see their ATAR Advice Notice, which also lists the units that counted.
Not affiliated with UAC or NESA. Facts on this page are drawn from UAC’s Report on the Scaling of the 2025 NSW HSC (opens in a new tab). ATAR is a registered trademark of the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre on behalf of all Australian tertiary admissions centres.