ECU Professor Braden Hill: Disappointing ATAR not the end for Year 12s, with multiple ways to university

Braden Hill thought he bombed his only chance of going to university when he didn’t get the Year 12 marks he’d hoped for. Now he’s a professor holding down a key leadership role at Edith Cowan University. Watching TikTok videos each year of Year 12s’ reactions to finding out their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank brings back disturbing memories for the deputy vice-chancellor for students, equity and indigenous at ECU. The Nyungar (Wardandi) man still recalls his disappointment on finding out his Tertiary Entrance Rank was just 55. The TER, now known as ATAR, is a number ranging from zero to 99.95 which reports a student’s rank position relative to all other students. “I was devastated because when I got an ATAR of 55, I thought I’d ruined my chances of going to uni,” Professor Hill said. “It was the one and done opportunity to determine my future pathway, and I stuffed it up. That’s how I felt back then.” Professor Hill urged students disappointed with their ATAR results — released on Friday night — to focus on the fact they are “so much more than a number”. “I would’ve liked someone to say to me that ATAR is a moment — it’s not a measure of you,” he said. “It’s a number that will never be big enough to capture everything that you’re capable of becoming.” And he wanted students to know that regardless of their ATAR, there were multiple ways into university. While ATAR subjects provided excellent preparation, he believed people had become too “snobby” about ATAR being the only way to get to university. “ATAR fundamentally takes 12 years of schooling and squashes it into a number,” he said. “I think if you can rank people with a number, there’s a status that gets stuck to it. A 99 (ATAR) becomes a bit of a badge of honour, something that’s rightfully celebrated. But I think for kids like me who get a 55 it feels like a label. It feels like something that we’re kind of branded with. “It’s a really great and enriching learning pathway, but it’s become an incorrect shorthand for who is smart enough and deserving of being able to go to university. “The fact that some families can throw a lot of resources at their kid’s success, and other families can’t, that number kind of glosses over that entirely.” Professor Hill studied English, geography, human biology and history at Lakelands Senior High School around 20 years ago. After he crashed in his exams, he was “lucky enough” to hear about a year-long enabling course at Murdoch University. Even though he went on to do multiple degrees and became a professor, his Year 12 courses remained the hardest things he’d ever done. “I think it’s incredibly stressful,” he said. “I really enjoyed much of what I learned. I had really great teachers. But if I reflect back, there’s a lot going on for young people — and for me, at that time — and I think whilst our education system is full of opportunity, it can also be a space where young people struggle for all sorts of reasons.” On top of his Year 12 studies, Professor Hill was also working, stacking supermarket shelves at night, and navigating challenges of homophobia and racism “being an Aboriginal queer kid”. “There’s a lot going on for young people,” he said. “And then we throw in this rigorous, but at times stressful, educational pathway.” Professor Hill said ATAR had been designed to rank students at a time when university places were limited. WA was leading the nation in providing pathways enabling more people to get to university. There was a misconception that enabling courses were an easier, “backdoor entry” to university. “But they’re not — they’re incredibly rigorous,” he said. Like most WA universities, ECU has seen strong growth in the number of school leavers entering via enabling pathways, increasing by 30 per cent in three years. This year, around 540 students took that path, up from 410 in 2022. Professor Hill said students who came to ECU through an enabling pathway did just as well as those entering via ATAR, achieving a pass rate of 85 to 88 per cent in their first-year units. “ATAR, enabling courses, portfolio entry, vocational training and education based entry — all of these are valid ways to get into university,” he said. “They are just different paths. There’s not a good one, there’s not a bad one, they’re just options that are there, and I think it’s important (students) remember that when they receive their results.”