UAI --Why is it important?
And why is it misleading!?
Why is the UAI important?
The UAI clearly is not necessarily a good indicator of whether a student will be a good Software Engineer, or a good doctor, but it is a reasonably good measure of general academic ability.
A high UAI for a program with a significant number of students is an indicator of the quality of your fellow students. Highly capable, inquisitive fellow students will provide challenges for you, and help to raise the level of courses.
But, the UAI cutoff can be confusing and misleading
The UAI cutoff is not meaningful without knowing the number of students that were admitted above that UAI.
A program cutoff of 99 could be achieved by taking only 1 or 2 students.
When enquiring about the UAI cutoff of a program, always ask how many students were taken above that UAI.
Consider the following 2003 cutoffs:
University SE cutoff
UTS 93.35
Sydney 94.9
UNSW 91.7
Doesn't look too good for UNSW does it?
But now consider this:
the median UAI for SE students at UNSW was 96.1
above that median UAI UNSW took 46 students
this was only 2 less than the total number of students taken by both UTS and Sydney combined!
So UNSW took as many students as the total of Sydney and UTS at a higher UAI than either of them.
Puts a different complexion on the above table, doesn't it!
Beware!
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/seng/Other/UAI/index.html
