FIELD POSITIONSFPs are additional rank orders that supplement an OP. The term “field” refers to areas of emphasis in the senior curriculum. FPs are used by tertiary institutions to help differentiate between students with the same OP, for example when the number of eligible applicants exceeds the number of places for a course. A student may receive up to five FPs, depending on their subject choices. FPs are reported in 10 bands, from one (the highest) to 10 (the lowest) in the following fields:
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Why should I care? |
You will only need to worry about Field Positions if you are doing a course which has a mid-rank course cut-off and does not require UMAT - around 1% of courses! You can find out the course cut-off info, which is different for each uni and each semester, here. An asterisk will mean a mid-rank cut-off.
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It's really important to get this right when planning your subjects for Years 11 and 12. In the past, some students have got the OP they needed to get into the course they wanted, but were not eligible for a Field Position in the required fields - this meant that they were not offered a place. If you already know that the course you want usually has mid-rank cutoffs, you should do the following:
1. check the course information for the course you want at all the universities you are thinking about applying to. Unfortunately there's no search function for this; you'll have to look one by one. You should be looking for information on which FPs are used -.each uni looks at different FPs, so check out all those you're interested in. 2.. Check the subject weighting for your planned subjects; as they change from year to year, you want to do your calculations for the year you will finish school. 3. Use these subject weightings and follow the example here to see if the subjects you plan to study will give you the FPs you will need. 4. If you need help with this process, drop in to the Careers Room. It's really complex stuff - don't be afraid to say you need a hand working it out. |