Overall Position

The Overall Position (OP) is a tertiary entrance rank used in the Australian state of Queensland for selection into universities. Like the similar systems used throughout the rest of Australia, the OP shows how well a student has performed in their senior secondary studies compared to all other OP-eligible students in Queensland.

The OP is calculated and used similarly to the Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank in Victoria, the Universities Admission Index in NSW and the ACT, and the Tertiary Entrance Rank in all other Australian states. Instead of being a percentile rank (0.00 - 99.95) like the other state TERs, the OP is a number from 1 to 25, where 1 is the highest and 25 is the lowest. This range of possible results is bell curved so the percentage of students receiving the very highest and very lowest results is much less common than those receiving mid-range OPs.

A conversion table is produced in conjunction with other tertiary authorities to allow conversion from a ENTER/TER/UAI or vice verse.

Calculating the Overall Position

OPs are calculated by the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) for all students who satisfactorily complete the Queensland Senior Certificate (QSC) and who meet certain other criteria for receiving an OP, such as participating in the Queensland Core Skills Test (QCST).

Each subject at each school ranks students according to their marks against other students studying the same subject at that school and produce a rank called the Subject Achievement Indicator (SAI). Each student studying a subject will receive an SAI between 200 (lowest rank) to 400 (highest rank).

The next level of calculation is to ensure that students are being equally assessed in ability in the school across subjects, and from school to school. Two levels of scaling are applied to ensure that each subject the student sits contributes equally to their OP. The first level of scaling - within school scaling - is applied to equalise each subject's achievement level within the school. An Overall Achievement Indicator (OAI) is calculated by working out the average of each student's SAIs for their best five authority subjects, subjects that have been approved and developed by the QSA (a student may only study five authority subjects, or if they study more, their best five are determined by the QSA).

The second stage of scaling - inter-school scaling - adjusts OAI ranks amongst all schools in the state to compensate for the differences between schools. This is an often misinterpreted stage of the OP calculation process. The QCST is the only absolute common element between schools, so this is used to determine how well schools are equally assessing students. If, for example, you study Graphics and you are the average student of Graphics at your school, and the average QCST result of graphics students at your school is above the state average, the assumption is that the graphics students at your school are above the average around the state, and your mark is boosted. Likewise, if you are at the top of your subject and the average QCST result is low, your mark (along with your classmates) may be brought down. This can be avoided if you have a significant gap between you (as the top student) and the majority of your classmates who achieve low on the QCST.

When all students in Queensland have been ranked and scaled, they are assigned to one of the 25 OP bands.

Criticism

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As with any system of ranking students whose educational experience has been wildly different, the OP system has proved controversial over its time in use. Criticisms of the system tend to fall into four categories:

Bias Toward Certain Subjects

There is a popular belief that certain subjects (particularly Science and Maths subjects) are weighted higher than others (generally vocational subjects, although certain of the Humanities subjects are occasionally named in this category) in determining a student's result. While vocational subjects are excluded from OP calculations, all authority-registered subjects (specified by the Queensland Studies Authority) are weighed equally. Any combination of authority-registered subjects can lead into receiving an OP 1. Subject weighting is calculated on how students perform in the Queensland Core Skills Test (QCS), hence there is no automatic bias in the system.

League Tables

The publication of "league tables", ranking schools in terms of OP results, has been a controversial topic for many years. Most of the arguments regarding the bias toward certain schools above are used in this debate, as well as the argument that an OP result is not the be-all and end-all of a student's educational attainment.

The System Itself

The determination of an OP is generally an inexact science on the part of all concerned outside of the Board of Senior Secondary Studies itself. Thus, students, parents and teachers are often surprised to see that a student receives an OP sometimes one or two bands lower or higher than they expect. This has contributed to a belief that the system is inherently inexplicable.

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