There are concerns that Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores exclusively don't accurately predict a student's success at university.
Victoria University Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Peter Dawkins says ATAR scores should not be used in isolation.
ATAR is a national ranking of students who complete Year 12 which predicts their entry to university.
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"The thing about ATARs is that they provide a piece of information but only one piece of information," he said
"The important questions for universities are to determine how well a student is going to do in a course and whether or not they should be accepted into that course and our analysis shows that some students with very high ATAR scores actually don't do very well and some students with very low ATAR scores actually do sensationally well."
"Often what turns out to be more important are things like whether students are studying the right course for them, whether they are highly motivated.
"Some reasons why students get relatively low ATAR scores may be more to do with their socioeconomic background, the opportunities they've had up until now."
The renewed focus on ATARs follows the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre’s (VTAC) changes to rules for publishing ATAR scores, strictly implemented this year.
VTAC spokesperson, Suzanne Connelly said VTAC has placed the decision to publish cut-offs back on universities.
"The clearly-in ATARs are produced for courses which primarily select on ATAR," she said.
"Unlike other states, Victoria produces a clearly in ATAR, and also the percentage below the clearly in ATAR.
"When that percentage below, in other words when more people than people who have got in by ATAR alone have got in based on the ATAR and other criteria such as subject bonuses, prerequisite bonuses, regional bonuses and the like, we've decided that the course need not publish the clearly in ATAR because really the ATAR is a small part of that selection."
Professor Dawkins said he supported this notion of additional criteria to determine students' acceptance into university courses.
"ATAR is only a piece of information. I'm not saying it shouldn't be used at all, but it's only one piece of information," he said.
He also said universities needed to provide support to first year students in preparing them for the right career.
"It's very important that students and universities and the schools the students come from have a very good dialogue about what are good pathways for them - what are the right courses given their background, where are they going to end up - it's that kind of dialogue and rich understanding that we need to get into our student population rather than giving undue emphasis to this thing called the ATAR score, " Professor Dawkins said.
Ms Connelly commended students and the schools for the work they already do in supporting and preparing for university.
"As always the clearly-in ATAR should be looked at in conjunction with the percentage below," she said.
"It is simply a guide and students should always list the courses they really want to get into - being a little bit realistic - but list their dream courses at number one and work from there."
Comment has been sought from the Department of Education.
