SA Footy

I was just wondering if any of the posters have any children in or looking to go to UniSA, and what they think of the new bonus points scheme?

Don't have kids of Uni age, and am unlikely to return to study at my age, but I was discussing this with the missus last night.

As far as I can tell, if you want to study a particular course at Uni (say Engineering), then any relevant topics you study at High School (Maths, Physics) will accrue bonus points on your Tertiary Entrance Score. Is that right?

I don't see the point of this. Nobody in their right mind would study only artsy-fartsy stuff Classical Studies and Modern Greek Language if they wanted to do anything science-related at Uni, and vice-versa. Anyone applying to do Engineering should already be studying Maths. Therefore everybody who applies for the course gets bonus marks, and nobody gets any benefit.

Perhaps it might dissuade kids from taking soft options like English as a Second Language - but is there really any impetus to drop the topic, if you are likely to fare better studying ESL even without the bonus marks? Back in my day the Tertiary Entrance Score was computed from pre-whitened (scaled) subject scores anyway, so traditionally harder topics are already given a bonus as these marks are typically scaled upwards.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me like this is just a PR exercise for UniSA. Flinders and Adelaide Universities do something similar for entry into Science/Engineering degrees so it's not like UniSA is doing anything groundbreaking.

Pseudo wrote:Don't have kids of Uni age, and am unlikely to return to study at my age, but I was discussing this with the missus last night.

As far as I can tell, if you want to study a particular course at Uni (say Engineering), then any relevant topics you study at High School (Maths, Physics) will accrue bonus points on your Tertiary Entrance Score. Is that right?

I don't see the point of this. Nobody in their right mind would study only artsy-fartsy stuff Classical Studies and Modern Greek Language if they wanted to do anything science-related at Uni, and vice-versa. Anyone applying to do Engineering should already be studying Maths. Therefore everybody who applies for the course gets bonus marks, and nobody gets any benefit.

Perhaps it might dissuade kids from taking soft options like English as a Second Language - but is there really any impetus to drop the topic, if you are likely to fare better studying ESL even without the bonus marks? Back in my day the Tertiary Entrance Score was computed from pre-whitened (scaled) subject scores anyway, so traditionally harder topics are already given a bonus as these marks are typically scaled upwards.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me like this is just a PR exercise for UniSA. Flinders and Adelaide Universities do something similar for entry into Science/Engineering degrees so it's not like UniSA is doing anything groundbreaking.

Im not at uni but thats what it sounded like when I was in yr12!
u wouldnt think anyone wanting to do engineering wouldnt be doing maths, just silly!
the scaling is made to compensate for people trying to take the easy option!