Uni Entry System about to Collapse (SMH) - (re: UNSW) (2 Viewers)

[Mr.Bark]

people are still going to be ratting on about how they wouldve chosen maths and crap if they knew about this at the end of year 10..but if they were that intent on doing commerce which has assumed knowledge of mathematics they shouldve chosen it anyway
if they really wanted to do commerce @ unsw...if they were unsure whether or not to choose it then and didnt want to study it at stage 6 level then they are in all probability unsuitable to study commerce anyway unless they have at uai above the cut-off signifying considerable aptitude to study at uni..
so stop complaining and fist-shaking all you can do now is show your mettle...
do your best at another course (best scenario with similar electives) and if you are good enough you can most probably transfer to commerce after the first year (or the second) or even re-enter mature-age if you are that intent on it as 'Conspirocy' outlined..
it's not the end of the world!! (not sure whether the SMH would agree..)

 

[Frigid]

again, sensationalist journalism on university admissions.

boohoo, uni apps up, HECS places down, DFEE places up, rich students getting in, $120K degrees, transfers 'exploiting' the system.

If people actually bothered to check, all of the following are well-documented before the release of offers:-

- Full-fee degree programs and FEE-HELP;
- Course transfers;
- EAS;
- Special selection criteria, such as interview, questionnaire and performance in certain subjects.

None of this is new.

To accuse UNSW of secretly 'cherry-picking' students based on certain subjects is fucking ridiculous.

The onus is on the applicant to ascertain the modes of entry, and to select those that most strongly enhance his or her chances of receiving an offer.

 

[stazi]

again, sensationalist journalism on university admissions.

boohoo, uni apps up, HECS places down, DFEE places up, rich students getting in, $120K degrees, transfers 'exploiting' the system.

If people actually bothered to check, all of the following are well-documented before the release of offers:-

- Full-fee degree programs and FEE-HELP;
- Course transfers;
- EAS;
- Special selection criteria, such as interview, questionnaire and performance in certain subjects.

None of this is new.

To accuse UNSW of secretly 'cherry-picking' students based on certain subjects is fucking ridiculous.

The onus is on the applicant to ascertain the modes of entry, and to select those that most strongly enhance his or her chances of receiving an offer.

however, UNSW never notified anyone (including UAC) what these procedures were. If someone contacted UNSW they would not reply with 'oh, if you do maths and english and score highly in those subjects, you can get into commerce with a lower UAI'. People choose their subjects in year 10. Not a single one of those students was aware that not selecting maths will hamper their chances of getting into B Commerce at UNSW. UNSW increased their cutoff to an unrealistic mark, which is why they are letting in so many people who achieved underneath this required UAI.

Yes, if student X who didn't do maths gets a 95.1 UAI, he's welcome to take Commerce @ UNSW. However, if he gets 95.0, he is at a disadvantage compared to his buddy who received a UAI in the high 80s, who did take mathematics.

 

[stazi]

people are still going to be ratting on about how they wouldve chosen maths and crap if they knew about this at the end of year 10..but if they were that intent on doing commerce which has assumed knowledge of mathematics they shouldve chosen it anyway
if they really wanted to do commerce @ unsw...if they were unsure whether or not to choose it then and didnt want to study it at stage 6 level then they are in all probability unsuitable to study commerce anyway unless they have at uai above the cut-off signifying considerable aptitude to study at uni..
so stop complaining and fist-shaking all you can do now is show your mettle...
do your best at another course (best scenario with similar electives) and if you are good enough you can most probably transfer to commerce after the first year (or the second) or even re-enter mature-age if you are that intent on it as 'Conspirocy' outlined..
it's not the end of the world!! (not sure whether the SMH would agree..)

Assumed knowledge is not required knowledge. Who really knows what they'll do in year 10? I wanted to do B Arts, then realised that I'd rather take commerce in year 12. It's wrong for someone to be placed at a disadvantage over others because they didn't take mathematics.

How does a uai of 97 with fuck i dont know pdhpe, biology, design and technology, modern history, advanced english prepare you for commerce at unsw?

I studied:
PDHPE, Biology, 4U English and Drama. Have those subjects prepared me for the world of business, and takin commerce subjects? Yes! I am doing fantastically well. My majors are also marketing and international business. Not all commerce majors are about maths.

 

[Frigid]

however, UNSW never notified anyone (including UAC) what these procedures were. If someone contacted UNSW they would not reply with 'oh, if you do maths and english and score highly in those subjects, you can get into commerce with a lower UAI'. People choose their subjects in year 10. Not a single one of those students was aware that not selecting maths will hamper their chances of getting into B Commerce at UNSW. UNSW increased their cutoff to an unrealistic mark, which is why they are letting in so many people who achieved underneath this required UAI.

I have not seen any evidence other than this SMH article that UNSW has offered B.Commerce places to those with significantly lower UAIs. It would be helpful if we could gauge the size and therefore total significance of this alternative mode of entry. If few places were offered, this does not evidence a 'collapse' of the admissions system.

It dilutes SMH's point significantly if they try to back it up with anecdotal evidence from our beloved forums and spread moral-panic with their exaggerations of the full-fee and transfer modes of entry.

 

[Smeed]

I have not seen any evidence other than this SMH article that UNSW has offered B.Commerce places to those with significantly lower UAIs. It would be helpful if we could gauge the size and therefore total significance of this alternative mode of entry. If few places were offered, this does not evidence a 'collapse' of the admissions system.

It dilutes SMH's point significantly if they try to back it up with anecdotal evidence from our beloved forums and spread moral-panic with their exaggerations of the full-fee and transfer modes of entry.

In that case you might want to read through this thread:
http://community.boredofstudies.org...ople-who-got-below-cut-off-but-got-offer.html

I think it's actually more than just a "few" places actually, as I, and most people I have spoken to that undertook the HSC in 2006, seem to know at least several cases of this happening.

 

[jpr333]

Was this new clause discreetly entered into the by-laws or whatever this year or has it been in there for a few with regards to the unsw selection process?

 

[Conspirocy]

I studied:
PDHPE, Biology, 4U English and Drama. Have those subjects prepared me for the world of business, and takin commerce subjects? Yes! I am doing fantastically well. My majors are also marketing and international business. Not all commerce majors are about maths.

They also considered english, and as you stated you studied 4 units of it.

Further, International Business is not a real major in my opinion. Marketing could be a real major, but overall is pretty wishy washy in my opinion.

Also, you said that you made your decision to do commerce pretty late. I know for a fact, that when I did my HSC plenty of kids did business studies, economics, and legal studies because they wanted to do commerce at uni. Most of them missed out. So for the very small percentage of people who change their mind at the last minute, there are many more who try very hard to get into commerce and don't. They showed an interest from the start, if you looked at their applications through UAC they would be filled with all business courses. If you had a real interest in the subject you would have taken subjects related to it for your HSC and not played a scaling game. It's clear that you don't as your majors are pretty wishy washy.

ps. gone to work so if you want to argue back, i'll get to it later

 

[stazi]

I have not seen any evidence other than this SMH article that UNSW has offered B.Commerce places to those with significantly lower UAIs. It would be helpful if we could gauge the size and therefore total significance of this alternative mode of entry. If few places were offered, this does not evidence a 'collapse' of the admissions system.

It dilutes SMH's point significantly if they try to back it up with anecdotal evidence from our beloved forums and spread moral-panic with their exaggerations of the full-fee and transfer modes of entry.

Whilst SMH should not have based their article on what was said on these forums without visual proof, we can base our argument on what you call 'anecdotal' (which is actually first and second-hand evidence.

1) Check out bosers sigs - funny how so many people with UAIs of 89 and above are doing B Commerce @ UNSW (non-full-fee)
2) Check out the thread smeed cited

Considering the small number of people who posted in the offers thread compared to the number of actual offers, imagine how much greater a problem this is (if it already seems like 30 or so people got in just from the forums [as well as their direct friends])

 

[MoonlightSonata]

But does the university only look at these once all the places are taken by people above the cutoff?

Yes.

If so, does that meant they set the cutoff with the intention to leave a gap for people with these other selection criteria?

No, it just means that they set an artificial cut-off and hope that it fills up. If it doesn't (as it has not this time, apparently), then they look to these factors.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

You don't seem to understand that the cut-off is not a legitimate cut-off as defined by UAC:

This means that while the cut-off may represent the UAI necessary for guaranteed entry into the course, the actual cut-off is arbitrary in nature as people with significantly lower UAIs have been admitted entry. If a legitimate cut-off had been used, it probably would have been around 93 like last year, so the people who got between 93 and 95.1 missed entry into the course.

Yes. But people don't seem to realise that this has been going on for some time. All universities adjust and set artificial cut-offs. This is nothing new to UNSW or other institutions.

Also, I think the problem that most people have is not that this 'flexible-entry' scheme was implemented, but rather that it was implemented with absolutely no prior warning, meaning that many people who may have desired entry into commerce with UAIs below the published 'cut-off' were not aware of the fact that performance in particular subject would assist them in receiving an offer.

For those people stating that the UAC guide gives warning by stating that "Performance in selected subjects - limited courses only" can be a determining factor, they should also have noted that right under this it states that these "limited courses" will detail information regarding such schemes in their relevant sections. However nowhere in the "Commerce and Economics" section is there any mention of any special entry scheme, while for other courses such as Engineering, details of any flexible entry schemes are clearly boxed and highlighted.

Perhaps it could have been made more explicit. However, considering it pertains only to those who did not make the cut-off requirement anyway, it is hardly unfair. They should not have expected to gain entry regardless. The fact that the university is, at its discretion, looking to allow people below the cut-off in -- and using very reasonable criterion to do so -- should not be of concern.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Once again, for the people who cannot read: English and maths results are not good indicators to show whether a person is suitable for commerce or not. If UNSW accept ppl with UAI below its official cutoff purely on the basis of English and maths result, then perhaps it should lower its UAI and find a better way to beat USyd, or perhaps the nerds at UNSW can communciate with HSC students and tell them their selection criterion BEFORE the release date.

As I said:

And it is not absurd to use the subject results of maths and English, for many reasons. First, everyone takes English, so there is no problem with using that. Second, the subjects people choose and their results in them often reflect their abilities and interests in those areas. If someone is failing 2U maths then maybe a career in accounting isn't for you. Likewise if you're getting 70 for Standard English, good luck studying law.

English and maths results are good indicators. Much better indicators than some random assortment of subjects which produce a UAI. Imagine the person who gets a UAI of 95 but did Biology, Chemistry, PE, Art, Religion, Design & Tech, Music. Using the UAI to assess the person's abilities in Commerce in such a situation would be fairly silly. Much better to look at a combination of UAI and English/maths.

 

[stazi]

They also considered english, and as you stated you studied 4 units of it.

Further, International Business is not a real major in my opinion. Marketing could be a real major, but overall is pretty wishy washy in my opinion.

What the hell? Seriously. How is marketing 'wishy-washy'? Because something is more creative and has more than one correct answer doesn't make it 'wishy-washy'. It is a business major as it deals with business. I would like to see you succeed in marketing and then call it 'wishy washy'.
In marketing you get to see how small decisions affect the profit made from your product.
In marketing you learn how to combine analytical AND creative skills into one field.
In marketing you learn how to use research to increase consumer knowledge (and you use maths to do this).

You're studying COMMERCE. Do you know what commerce is? Commerce is the interchange of goods and services in an economy. What helps drive this interchange, increase its volume, increase the number of product offerings, make the products more relevant to consumers...? Well, it's marketing.

You do not have the knowledge of marketing to form an opinion, as I would bet you don't know what it involves, nor have you studied it.

I do, however, agree with your opinion about international business as it's more a major designed to supplement others.


And here are some other commerce majors you don't need to have any mathematical knowledge to succeed in:
-Management (again, not good on its own, but great to supplement others)
-Political economy
-Government & International Relations (more useful to business than you think)
-Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations (not wishy-washy at all, as you call it)
-Commercial Law
-Business Information Systems

You say I studied 4U of English - yes, they considered The English Advanced component, but they considered it TOGETHER (only) with mathematics.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Awful article.

Oh no doubt. This is the trashiest article I've seen in a while from SMH.

The amount of rubbish in it is astounding. They need to get their facts straight.

And the whole "crisis" rhetoric is very disappointing.

 

[Conspirocy]

What the hell? Seriously. How is marketing 'wishy-washy'? Because something is more creative and has more than one correct answer doesn't make it 'wishy-washy'. It is a business major as it deals with business. I would like to see you succeed in marketing and then call it 'wishy washy'.
In marketing you get to see how small decisions affect the profit made from your product.
In marketing you learn how to combine analytical AND creative skills into one field.
In marketing you learn how to use research to increase consumer knowledge (and you use maths to do this).

You're studying COMMERCE. Do you know what commerce is? Commerce is the interchange of goods and services in an economy. What helps drive this interchange, increase its volume, increase the number of product offerings, make the products more relevant to consumers...? Well, it's marketing.

You do not have the knowledge of marketing to form an opinion, as I would bet you don't know what it involves, nor have you studied it.

To be quite honest I'm a session behind in my degree because I studied two marketing courses when I thought I wanted to major it because I liked it in business studies (see that's what you call taking an interest before UNI). I also took two international business courses the next year as I thought that would be a good major. I did quite well in them, I'm not going to sit here and compare marks.

I found that compared to other courses it was easier to achieve marks in both of these.

You raise some good points about marketing, and that's why I said it was maybe not so much a wishy washy major. But generally you see people doing it trying to boost their wam, taking the easy options, and not taking the maths based components you referred to.

--"What helps drive this interchange, increase its volume, increase the number of product offerings, make the products more relevant to consumers...? Well, it's marketing." --> this view depends on what you are taught in your marketing course, who you are marketing for/to, and what your product is. Maybe firms don't do this at all with their marketing.

 

[wheredanton]

I studied:
PDHPE, Biology, 4U English and Drama. Have those subjects prepared me for the world of business, and takin commerce subjects? Yes! I am doing fantastically well. My majors are also marketing and international business. Not all commerce majors are about maths.

You did 4 unit English and probably did well in it. Are you suggesting that your 4 unit English results were not a good indicator of your ability to complete a commerce degree? Are you only contesting the ability of maths as an indicator of how well someone will do at Commerce?

 

[stazi]

You did 4 unit English and probably did well in it. Are you suggesting that your 4 unit English results were not a good indicator of your ability to complete a commerce degree? Are you only contesting the ability of maths as an indicator of how well someone will do at Commerce?

Not necessarily. English Advanced tests written English skills. There are many great businessmen (or women) of our time who may not have the best written ability. However, they have fantastic verbal skills. Communication in business relies more on being able to verbally communicate properly. Whether or not someone can critique a Shakespearean tragedy wouldn't be something that I, as an employer, look for in an employee.

To be quite honest I'm a session behind in my degree because I studied two marketing courses when I thought I wanted to major it because I liked it in business studies (see that's what you call taking an interest before UNI). I also took two international business courses the next year as I thought that would be a good major. I did quite well in them, I'm not going to sit here and compare marks.

I found that compared to other courses it was easier to achieve marks in both of these.

You raise some good points about marketing, and that's why I said it was maybe not so much a wishy washy major. But generally you see people doing it trying to boost their wam, taking the easy options, and not taking the maths based components you referred to.

--"What helps drive this interchange, increase its volume, increase the number of product offerings, make the products more relevant to consumers...? Well, it's marketing." --> this view depends on what you are taught in your marketing course, who you are marketing for/to, and what your product is. Maybe firms don't do this at all with their marketing.

The average mark in marketing courses is still in the 65-68 range (which is uniform across other majors, too). Marketing is easy to get 'good' marks in. However, it's difficult to do really well in. High distinctions are very sparse with most subjects only having a maximum of about 2-5 HDs given out for candidatures of 300 students. I actually had to work amazingly hard for my HD average in the subject, so I can relay this from personal experience. Although having natural talent in the subject also matters. You can also make this argument for maths based majors such as Econometrics.

 

[vnblueberry]

um, modern history is not out of 50, and also, if he had gotten the marks you claim, his UAI would be around 98.xx

first off, he is my friend, i saw the marks, and i KNOW for a fact that he beat me in chemistry, english, maths 2 unit and maths ext 1, by a margin of 1 mark or 10 marks who knows, who cares, he beat me. who remember's their marks clearly anyway?

secondly he got 86 in modern history and 41 in ext history. my bad

however, if you dont work for UAC or the board of studies, i dont think you are able to say what uai he 'should' have gotten. he got 95.05 with those marks. fullstop. whatever happened, he got that uai

so back to my original question
my friend who got a uai of 95.05, who beat me in maths 2 and 3 unit, english and chemistry, did not get into UNSW commerce (which was his first preference). whilst i got a uai 3-4 less than him and got in.
is there anything i can do?

 

[sunjet]

Most of the schools that have high rates of graduates going to University usually enforce a level of Maths above 2U and Advanced English for this exact reason. Even then it's pretty much known among highschool students that first year mathematics at uni, which a high percentage of courses require, is similar to 3/4U HSC mathematics.

 

[Sparcod]

so back to my original question
my friend who got a uai of 95.05, who beat me in maths 2 and 3 unit, english and chemistry, did not get into UNSW commerce (which was his first preference). whilst i got a uai 3-4 less than him and got in.
is there anything i can do?

If I was him, I'd start ringing someone (UAC or UNSW) and start yelling at them. Seriously, I'd also post something in the smh blog or even write a letter to a newspaper complaining about the corrupt system.

I heard that some people got into UTS engineering with 15 (not 0.15) points below the cutoff just by doing a really simple survey that anybody can pass.

The more complaints they get, the more ashamed they'll be.

Most of the schools that have high rates of graduates going to University usually enforce a level of Maths above 2U and Advanced English for this exact reason. Even then it's pretty much known among highschool students that first year mathematics at uni, which a high percentage of courses require, is similar to 3/4U HSC mathematics.

Yeh, that's understandable. The unis don't want people dropping out because they haven't learnt HSC maths. The system is still unfair. They're turning hopefuls away.