HAST results explained: scaled scores, percentiles and stanines

A HAST result only becomes useful once you can read it. This page from Braintree Coaching Australia sets out how a Higher Ability Selection Test (HAST) report is put together, what a per-component profile tells you about your child, how participating schools set their own cut-offs, when the school receives results from ACER, and the steps worth taking once a result arrives. It pairs with our HAST exam preparation hub and our HAST test format guide for the component-by-component detail, and with the HAST exam FAQ for registration and administrative questions.

How are HAST results scored?

HAST is marked by ACER and reported to the school your child applied to, and that school decides what to pass on to your family. On its HAST pages, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) describes two outputs: an individual student report, and a school report that gives the school a clear ranking of its candidates. ACER publishes no score scales, no reference group and no cut-off for HAST. The report your school issues is therefore the authority on the numbers in front of you, and the four terms below are the general assessment conventions we use at Braintree Coaching Australia when we sit down with a family to read one.

1. Raw marking. The multiple-choice components are machine scored. The Written Expression task is assessed by qualified human markers, which is ACER's own description of how the writing is handled.
2. Standardisation. A raw mark on its own says little, because papers vary in difficulty. Standardising converts the raw mark to a comparable figure, often called a standardised score and sometimes a scaled score. Check which term your school's report uses before comparing anything.
3. Percentile rank. A percentile says what share of the comparison group a child scored above. On a selection test the comparison group is the other candidates, so a percentile here is a harder measure than the same number on a whole-year-level test.
4. Stanine. A stanine compresses percentiles into nine bands, which makes shortlisting quicker. Some schools work in stanines, some in percentiles, and some in their own internal bands.

Ask the school which of these appears on its report, because the school chooses the component package it buys and decides how the components combine. No single composite "HAST score" is read the same way everywhere.

What does each band of scores signal against the high-ability cohort?

Stanines are a nine-band scale used across many standardised assessments, and the percentile ranges below are the standard statistical definition of those bands. ACER does not publish them for HAST, so treat this table as the general convention and read your school's report for what it actually contains. One thing worth holding on to: because every child in the comparison group is applying for a selective or scholarship place, a mid-range band here still describes a child performing well above the general average for their age.

Stanine	Approx. percentile	What the band describes
9	96th percentile and above	Exceptional within a group that is already academically strong.
8	89th–95th percentile	Very strong, with no clearly weak component.
7	77th–88th percentile	Above average within the group of candidates.
5–6	40th–76th percentile	Mid-range within the group of candidates, and still above the general average for the year level.
1–4	Below 40th percentile	Lower within the group of candidates, which is not a measure against the general population.

These bands are guidance, not a guarantee. A child who scores in the top band for Abstract Reasoning and mid-range for Written Expression may rank below a candidate whose profile is even, because most schools look for a balanced result. Read the full per-component report before drawing a conclusion from one number.

How do schools set HAST cut-offs?

There is no single national HAST pass mark. Each participating school sets and applies its own cut-off and selection process, and because each school administers its own sitting, a result that wins a place at one school can sit just below the line at another. The line also moves year on year with the strength of the applicant pool. For preparation that targets the components schools weight most heavily, see our HAST test preparation strategies.

Three patterns hold across participating schools:

• Relative ranking. Most schools rank all applicants against each other and offer their limited places from the top of that ranking, so the effective cut-off shifts each year with cohort size and strength.
• Component weighting. Some schools use a four-component package and others a three-component one, and the weight given to Mathematical Reasoning or Reading Comprehension varies. Confirm the weighting with each target school.
• One input among several. Schools commonly read the HAST profile alongside the primary school report, an interview and supporting documentation. A strong result is usually the largest single piece of evidence, and it rarely stands alone.

ACER's participating-schools list named 83 schools when we checked it in August 2026: 30 in New South Wales, 26 in Victoria, 11 in Queensland, 9 in South Australia, 6 in Western Australia and one in Singapore. Each of them publishes its own criteria, so the only reliable cut-off figure is the one your target school publishes for the current year. Confirm the criteria with each school directly before applying.

When are HAST results released?

ACER states a turnaround of 10 working days between receiving the completed tests and providing results to the school. That figure covers ACER's marking and reporting only. It is not the date your family hears, and ACER publishes no family-notification interval at all.

What happens after that sits with the school:

• ACER's commitment is to the school: results within 10 working days of receiving the completed tests.
• The school decides how it tells your family, whether by post, email, a parent portal or a meeting, and it decides when.
• No central HAST results portal exists for families, because each school runs its own sitting.

So the useful question at registration, or on test day at the latest, is a simple one: when will the school tell us, and how? Ask the admissions office for that date and confirm it with the school, because it is the only timing figure that will actually apply to your child.

What should we do after the result arrives?

Two things matter whichever way the result went: read the whole per-component profile before reacting to it, and act inside the deadline the school has published.

If an offer is received. Accept inside the deadline in the offer letter. Schools set their own acceptance windows, so read the letter for the date and ring the admissions office if it is not stated. If you are holding competing offers, declining the ones you will not take frees places for waitlisted families. Ask the school whether component-level feedback is available, because a HAST profile is useful diagnostic information for the first year at a new school.

If no offer is received. Read the per-component report carefully first. A near miss often reflects one weak component instead of a broad academic gap:

• Identify the limiting component. The profile usually points to a single addressable cause, such as pacing, a vocabulary gap in Reading Comprehension, or unfamiliarity with Abstract Reasoning question types.
• Keep any reserve-list application open. Schools release reserve offers as accepted families decline. Movement is uncommon, it happens each cycle, and staying on the list costs nothing.
• Consider a later entry point. ACER states that Primary HAST is designed for entry into Years 5 and 6, and that Secondary HAST covers entry into Years 7 to 11 with Junior, Middle and Senior levels inside that band. ACER does not publish which year of entry each secondary level maps to, so confirm the level and the year with the school before planning a second attempt, then work from the HAST test format guide to target the limiting components.

Whether or not an offer arrives, the result is a snapshot against a group of children who are all applying for selective places. Hold it against that context, confirm each school's policy directly, and use the per-component profile to plan the next step.

Can we appeal or request a re-mark?

Any query about a HAST result goes to the school that ran the sitting. The school holds the report and set the selection process, and ACER publishes no appeals pathway for families, so the school's own policy is the only one that applies. Ask the admissions office on the day the result arrives what review options exist and by when, because these windows are short and the school will not usually chase you.

Three things are worth asking about by name:

• A clerical check, which confirms the answers were transcribed and totalled correctly. Ask for one if the per-component pattern looks inconsistent with your child's practice results.
• Special consideration, where a documented circumstance affected performance, such as illness, a family emergency or a problem at the venue. Schools generally want formal documentation and want it early.
• A second look at the Written Expression task. It is the one component assessed by human markers, so ask the school whether it can be reviewed and what that involves.

A successful appeal almost always rests on documented evidence, not on disagreement with the score.

What does this mean for preparation?

Read a HAST result across all components, remember that the comparison group is other candidates for selective and scholarship places, and act inside each school's published deadlines. If your child is preparing to sit again at a later entry level, the HAST test format guide sets out the component-by-component structure, and our HAST practice tests and resources page is the place to start timed practice on the limiting component. The HAST exam FAQ covers registration and administrative questions, and the corresponding classroom programme runs through our HAST exam preparation hub.