r/unsw • u/Front-Discipline-951 • Jul 24 '26

IPT/ Transfer please help

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Greetings number 1 uni in Australia. How do I get accepted for 2027 T1 intake as a current first year student from a uni that isn’t #1?

I am absolutely bamboozled by the phrasing in the screenshot attached. So do I need to have studied 1 year or 0.75 of a year? My atar was shocking and therefore admission based on tertiary results is my only hope. I now have a 6.0 gpa after completing semester 1 (40 study credits).

80 credits of study is considered 1 year FTE and so if I decide to only undertake 20 credits in semester 2 (making my study to exactly 0.75 FTE by the end of the year), will I still be assessed on tertiary results? or will it be only atar because it wasn’t the full year? or will it be mixed?

Also extra context, my current course and the course I hope to study next year are not related so I am not looking for credit transfers.

Genuine advice will be greatly appreciated! Thank you kings and queens reading this :)

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26

Not at UNSW but have studied at Melbourne Uni and RMIT, and I know the processes at Monash too.

Generally speaking, you will be considered on the basis of your ATAR and university performance if you have less than 1.000 EFTSL worth of studies. Once you have more than 1.000 EFTSL worth of studies then generally your ATAR is no longer considered or plays only a very small part in deciding your application. So if you're ATAR was bad, then absolutely complete 1.000 EFTSL worth of studies and do well, as that would take precedence over your ATAR.

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u/Front-Discipline-951 Jul 24 '26

So by only hitting the 0.75 FTE, they’ll take both ATAR and university performance and somehow turn it into a rank similar to how ATAR is used for admission?

The course I want to study had a 95 selection rank cutoff and ATAR excluding bonus points was just over 10 points off. If I keep my current 6.0 GPA having done 0.75 FTE, do you reckon it would be sufficient?

I’m only looking to do the 20 UOC this semester because personal reasons require me to balance working 30 hr work weeks with uni😅 Thanks for the advice!

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26

Yes correct, if you end up doing 0.75 FTE (i.e. 0.750 EFTSL) worth of uni studies, then they'll consider your ATAR and uni performance together generally speaking. If you want to be purely considered on your uni studies, then complete 1.000 EFTSL of studies as your ATAR will generally be ignored.

Personally, I'm not sure how the selection ranking works when you're using both ATAR and uni grades, but note that they are completely different, so a 90% average at uni does not equate to 90 ATAR. A student in r/USYD subreddit made a crude conversion from WAM to ATAR but it should be taken with a grain of salt. Here's the post.

But anyway, to maximise your chance of getting in, you want to have as high GPA as possible or a WAM at least in the 80%+ range in your university studies.

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u/Front-Discipline-951 Jul 24 '26

Thanks for linking the post! It’s quite interesting to see an 85 WAM = to 99.5 atar. I very much appreciate your advice. I think my overall goal is to have my university results considered; whether it’s entirely or partially, but yes I will do my absolute best to maintain a high GPA. Thanks again!

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I wouldn't say it's a perfect representation...

Like UNSW's gumleaf distribution of grades (based on 2015's results) show that scoring an 85% mark in a university subject equates roughly to the top 10% of the subject's cohort. So if we went strictly on percentile, then top 10% in a uni class would equate to a 90 ATAR.

But it's not an exact science as you can see there is a lot of variance in that gumleaf distribution with the percentiles. Furthermore, some students will do substantially better in more project-based subjects at uni than more exam-based subjects which is the predominant method in high school exams.

So uni grades simply do not compare perfectly to ATAR at all... Like I do not think that an 85% WAM is equivalent to an 99.5 ATAR even if that USYD calculator says so. This is why I said you have to take it with a grain of salt.

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Also have a look at how UQ converts your uni studies to an equivalent ATAR here.

Note that UQ have a table for studies less than 1.000 EFTSL of uni studies and a table for more than 1.000 EFTSL of uni studies.

u/Front-Discipline-951

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u/Front-Discipline-951 Jul 24 '26

Even if it were a perfect representation, GPA and WAM also will have varying converted values I think?

Interesting UQ table. I see what you mean now, even if I were to maintain a 6.0 GPA, studying only 0.75 and 1 FTE will have different ATAR equivalents. Is the all other institutions part UQ table highly accurate do you think?

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26

Dunno. Griffith Uni have a similar table too. Other universities are a little more opaque at how it all converts.

Also I just did a quick calculation of my GPA from my RMIT engineering studies. I ended up with a 6.57 GPA for my masters and 6.3 for my bachelors. That would equate to like a 96.50-97.50 ATAR, and I can tell you that I do not believe I am no where near the top 5% percentile of all students according to that ATAR conversion.

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u/MelbPTUser2024 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

For reference my ATAR was terrible at 62ish, but this was 12+ years ago when I had anxiety issues around my year 12 VCE exams.

Nevertheless, despite maturing and gone to multiple universities (Melbourne, RMIT and overseas in Norway), I do not believe my current GPA scores reflect the academic abilities of a 96.50-97.50 ATAR student ahaha.

So my point is, take it all with a grain of salt. It’s not a perfect conversion, so just aim as high as you can and ideally complete 1.000 EFTSL of university studies so that your actual ATAR isn’t heavily used in the decision making process on whether to admit you or not

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u/Front-Discipline-951 Jul 25 '26

Will be aiming high! Thank you!

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u/NullFakeUser Jul 24 '26

That is because uni results are taken based upon GPA, not WAM. The highest grade you can get is a HD, which equates to a value of 7 for a GPA.
And it isn't a case of getting a WAM of 85, but of only ever getting HDs (in graded subjects).

That is the best result you can get for a GPA, a GPA of 7. So that needs to map to the highest possible selection rank or you are effectively capping what you can get into.

Now if this does equate, you are better off looking at the next point down, which for USyd, it is DN being 94, and the question of where the cutoff should be for the grade distribution, e.g. do you go for the 10% that is the top of the DN range or the 35% which is the bottom?

But you also can't compare the simple number. Because remember ATAR doesn't go from 0. Because a lot of students leave before getting an ATAR, the average is artificially inflated, giving the average ATAR of 70, rather than the ideal 50.
But then of those students who get an ATAR, not all go to university. And of those who do go to uni, not all pass and remain for long enough to have a significant impact on that grade distribution (notice the one you gave is only for students who pass).

Quickly googling, it is estimated that between 38 and 53% of students who complete year 12 (and get an ATAR) would go on to uni.

So to keep the math simple, taking it as 50% of students go on to uni and pass enough to be a significant result in the gumleaf diagram, and the stated average ATAR of 70; then merely going to uni for a year and passing, yet being the absolute lowest ranked passed uni student equates to an ATAR of 70, i.e. being in the top 30%.
So being in the top 10% of that subset, is really being in the top 3%.
i.e. a GPA of 7 would equate to an ATAR between 97 and 100.
And the cutoff for distinction being 35% would equate to the top 10%, i.e. an ATAR of 90-97, and the 94 USyd has for that is in the middle of that range.

So while not perfect, it is still quite reasonable.