I received a 99+ ATAR and a perfect GPA - ask me anything.

[Joseph41]

My apologies if this has already been asked but what did you find more difficult personally, obtaining an ATAR of 99+ or maintaining a High GPA at Uni?

Good question, and I'm not really sure thinking about it now, to be honest. Some thoughts:

* I feel like high school was more competitive in a way, because I was surrounded by a lot of ATAR rhetoric, and there was unknowns like scaling and moderation etc. floating around. The ATAR is literally a ranking system, whereas I felt that was less the case at uni, so I guess uni was kinda easier on that front.

* At uni, I could sort of just do things my own way. Like I'd go to lectures if I wanted to, study by myself and completely anonymously - stuff like that I personally preferred.

* I'm not really sure how to compare time investment, because it's very different. I studied straight Arts, and I don't think my uni experience would necessarily be consistent with other people studying other things (or even other people studying the same things). For example, I had very few contact hours, which is completely different to a lot of uni courses. If I had to guess, I probably would have invested about equal effort into each.

* Socially, I found uni way harder initially (first year or two particularly), which isn't directly relevant to grades but is also very relevant in terms of the overall experience and motivation to study etc.

So to answer your question, I'm honesty not sure - even after thinking about it in some depth. They were just very different things for me, even though they're similar insofar as being related to studying and grades.

I'm sorry I couldn't give a more definitive answer! 😬

[2024289]

Hi,
Just wondering what raw scores you got in your subjects to get such a high Atar. I'm feeling unsure about around what raw scores you would need to get in the above 99's. I know scaling does come into play but hearing yours would be interesting if you don't mind sharing.

[Joseph41]

Hi,
Just wondering what raw scores you got in your subjects to get such a high Atar. I'm feeling unsure about around what raw scores you would need to get in the above 99's. I know scaling does come into play but hearing yours would be interesting if you don't mind sharing.

Hey 2024289! Welcome to ATAR Notes - how's it going?

I guess the first thing to note is that I studied in Victoria (VCE), so my eventual subject/study scores were out of 50. That won't be the case for everybody reading.

The second thing to note is that I honestly can't remember my exact scores. It's very possible I've answered a similar question earlier in this thread, and the response I'm about to provide might even contradict that post - just for full transparency, the results I'll list below are based solely on my memory on this specific day, so might not be accurate.

The third thing to note is that my raw scores for SACs throughout the year don't really matter, and aren't all that relevant to you or anybody else going through VCE (or HSC, or QCE, or WACE, or whatever else). That's not to say they're of absolutely no interest, but you've touched on the concept of scaling - and things like that are really important. Ultimately, if I averaged 70% throughout the year for a subject, that's not necessarily the same as somebody else averaging 70% throughout the year at a different school, or in a different year. It's practically impossible to accurately compare raw results without further consideration for variables like school, rankings, cohort, eventual exam performance, and so on. I wrote a little bit about that here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is to please take the below with a big ol' grain of salt, because I honestly don't think my raw results mean much, or are even very useful as a guide. But in saying that:

→ HHD [raw study score 50]: I dropped some marks throughout the year but never too many in any given SAC. I'd estimate I was sitting on  about a 95% average.

→ Psych [raw study score 48]: probably more like 90-95%

→ Business Management [raw study score 48]: somewhere in the 85-95% range

→ Further Maths [raw study score 45]: maybe 85%-90%

→ English Language [raw study score 44]: maybe 85-90%

→ VCD [raw study score 44]: I was sitting on 100% - didn't drop any marks through SACs or internal coursework

But again, please note that these raw SAC marks don't mean too much in isolation! I really can't emphasise that enough, and I don't think there's a certain "cut off mark" for internal raw scores to be in line for a 99+ ATAR - for the reasons outlined above (and others).

[Joseph41]

A 2022 bump! Happy to answer any other questions. 🥳

[Commercekid2050]

A 2022 bump! Happy to answer any other questions. 🥳

Hi Joseph,

Wanted to ask how was your university experience especially first year?

[Joseph41]

Hi Joseph,

Wanted to ask how was your university experience especially first year?

Hey Commercekid2050! Thanks for your question.

It's very possible I've answered something similar to this in this thread before, but I'm going to answer again without going back to see what I said previously - hopefully that gives a better representation of my thoughts right now rather than what I thought or had reflected previously.

In total, my uni experience was fine, but it got progressively better as I went on, I think. In first year, I was really lost. I came off Year 12 where I was pretty diligent with how I studied, to a degree that only had like eight contact hours or something (I did straight Arts at uni). This was good in some ways because it provided flexibility and more freedom etc., but it also meant I had way, way more time where I had to decide what to do myself, rather than having it dictated by school bells and school periods and the like.

As a result, I didn't love first year uni. In fact, I recall I very nearly dropped out at some point in my first or second semester. I avoided people as much as possible and was just generally not in the best study (or general) headspace.

In second year and beyond, I started going to lectures more in person (I think I listened to as many as I could online in first year), and I found that that helped. I think I was probably just on campus more in general, which provided more structure and better differentiated study time from non-study time. And the further I went on, the more I enjoyed uni, because I sort of worked out which subjects I liked, and which subjects I didn't. I also just naturally become more familiar with uni processes and how it all worked, which is probably hard to fully appreciate until you're in it yourself (like a lot of things).

At the end of my third year, I applied for honours, and then had a year doing that. That was by far and away my favourite year of uni. I was also way more involved in things that year, doing volunteering stuff and getting a little bit (peripherally) involved with a society. I was just more engaged in general. I'm really glad I persisted with the whole uni thing and didn't drop out in my first year, like I wanted to.

Of course, this experience won't reflect everybody's uni experiences, and it's also probably a bit different because I had so few contact hours across my entire degree. I'm sure those who have studied at uni the last few years have different experiences with COVID stuff, too (I went back to uni for a Grad Cert in 2019-2020, but it was completely online anyway, and wasn't my first uni experience).

How are you finding it so far?

[Commercekid2050]

Hey Commercekid2050! Thanks for your question.

It's very possible I've answered something similar to this in this thread before, but I'm going to answer again without going back to see what I said previously - hopefully that gives a better representation of my thoughts right now rather than what I thought or had reflected previously.

In total, my uni experience was fine, but it got progressively better as I went on, I think. In first year, I was really lost. I came off Year 12 where I was pretty diligent with how I studied, to a degree that only had like eight contact hours or something (I did straight Arts at uni). This was good in some ways because it provided flexibility and more freedom etc., but it also meant I had way, way more time where I had to decide what to do myself, rather than having it dictated by school bells and school periods and the like.

As a result, I didn't love first year uni. In fact, I recall I very nearly dropped out at some point in my first or second semester. I avoided people as much as possible and was just generally not in the best study (or general) headspace.

In second year and beyond, I started going to lectures more in person (I think I listened to as many as I could online in first year), and I found that that helped. I think I was probably just on campus more in general, which provided more structure and better differentiated study time from non-study time. And the further I went on, the more I enjoyed uni, because I sort of worked out which subjects I liked, and which subjects I didn't. I also just naturally become more familiar with uni processes and how it all worked, which is probably hard to fully appreciate until you're in it yourself (like a lot of things).

At the end of my third year, I applied for honours, and then had a year doing that. That was by far and away my favourite year of uni. I was also way more involved in things that year, doing volunteering stuff and getting a little bit (peripherally) involved with a society. I was just more engaged in general. I'm really glad I persisted with the whole uni thing and didn't drop out in my first year, like I wanted to.

Of course, this experience won't reflect everybody's uni experiences, and it's also probably a bit different because I had so few contact hours across my entire degree. I'm sure those who have studied at uni the last few years have different experiences with COVID stuff, too (I went back to uni for a Grad Cert in 2019-2020, but it was completely online anyway, and wasn't my first uni experience).

How are you finding it so far?

Hi Joseph,

Thanks for your response. My uni experience till now has been pretty good. Though I am still adjusting to this new environment my first semester has been pretty good. Currently I am not able to participate too much on the events happening in uni but try to go to as many activities as I can.

[TimeTraveller from 1899]

In your first post you explain how you would summarize a chapter of a textbook until you could condense all the information you needed on 1 page. How many pages was your first summary usually?
Also I noticed you got a 48 in Psychology which is quite an amazing achievement! Could you offer any study advice on the subject as I am doing it now.
Thanks you for taking your time and sharing so much it is extremely useful.

[Joseph41]

In your first post you explain how you would summarize a chapter of a textbook until you could condense all the information you needed on 1 page. How many pages was your first summary usually?
Also I noticed you got a 48 in Psychology which is quite an amazing achievement! Could you offer any study advice on the subject as I am doing it now.
Thanks you for taking your time and sharing so much it is extremely useful.

Hey, TimeTraveller? What was 1899 like? Thanks for your questions - I'm glad you've found the thread useful so far.

In your first post you explain how you would summarize a chapter of a textbook until you could condense all the information you needed on 1 page. How many pages was your first summary usually?
This varied a fair bit based on things like how big the chapter was that I was summarising in the first place, and how I was feeling on the day. As you probably know or have experienced yourself, studying is just straight up harder to get through on some days than others. On the days where I didn't feel in the "study zone" as much, my summaries were probably more waffly, less concise, and less clear - so the initial summaries were probably quite long. I'm hesitant to put an actual figure on it (like "oh, they were three pages!" or whatever), but I'd say maybe a paragraph or two per sub-section of the chapter? It's hard to say though because, as above, chapter lengths can vary quite drastically.

Overall, though, I don't think it's really the length of the summary that really counts - it's more the process. If you're actively thinking about which parts are the most important, how to write about things efficiently without going into unnecessary detail whilst still being clear, and how different parts of the course interlink, I think that's more important than hitting a predetermined length of summary.

Also I noticed you got a 48 in Psychology which is quite an amazing achievement! Could you offer any study advice on the subject as I am doing it now.
Thanks for that. The study design has changed a few times since I studied the subject, but below are some general things I found useful when studying Psych:

* Before the exam, make sure you're doing at least some questions/practice exams under timed conditions. From memory, it was a bit of a rush to get everything done in time, and I think I probably found an advantage just by virtue of finishing the exam (just - literally finished as the invigilator said "pens down"). Of course, you don't want to sacrifice quality of responses, so it's a bit of a trial and error thing to find out how quickly you need to write, and how much detail you can go into for any given question before moving on to the next.

* Stick to the study design. Psychology is such a massive area, and there's practically limitless information once you start digging through resources online and the like - but a fair chunk of that will be outside the scope of the study design. If we're specifically talking about getting a high study score in VCE Psych, I think it's inefficient to invest time into anything that isn't directly assessable. I'm sure I would have mentioned something similar earlier in this thread, but IMO the study design/syllabus is so underused when it comes to working out what you need to study. Through the year and before the exam, I recommend going through it quite meticulously to make sure you feel comfortable with each dot point. Sometimes, the exam can throw in something a bit left field, or it might use terminology that isn't commonly used in class/resources, but is explicitly mentioned in the study design. You don't want to lose marks just because you're not familiar with slightly different terminology and, therefore, don't understand what the question is asking.

I could have sworn I'd posted a guide to the subject on these forums, but I can't seem to find one. So instead, here are some threads you might find useful from other users (note that they may also be from previous study designs):

* ATAR Notes user "cookiedream": How I Got a Raw 48 in Psychology - Tips, Tricks and Regrets - March 2017
* ATAR Notes user "peter.g15": How I got a Raw 50 in Psych - October 2018
* ATAR Notes user "howey": Psychology Q&A with the ATAR Notes Psych Lecturer - April 2017

Let me know if any of that doesn't make sense, or if you have any other questions.