ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VIC Year 10 Discussion => Victorian Education Discussion => VCE Subject Selection => Topic started by: jammol7 on May 16, 2019, 07:10:58 pm
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Yo! Would like some advice please:
With subject selections coming up I really need to finalise what VCE subjects I’ll be doing in yr11 and 12. I’m hoping to do two 3&4s next year: chem and something else. I’m 100% certain on chem, but as for the ”something else”, I’m caught between LOTE (French) and HHD.
Pros of French:
• I did 1&2 last year, while I’d be diving straight into 3&4 HHD without any foundation knowledge
• The content seems more interesting
• Scaling — need I say more?
Pros of HHD:
• Content seems easier and more applicable
• I’m aiming for medicine so HHD seems more relevant
I know you shouldn’t focus on scaling but after hours of research on the highly reliable ATAR calculator I found that if I did HHD I would actually need a raw 44 or above across ALL my subjects for a 99, while if I did French there’d be a lot more wriggle room.
All sorts of advice appreciated. Thanks!
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Look, I'm a bit biased here because I did French, loved it and now it's my major at uni.
However, I think there are lots of good reasons to do French over HHD. Firstly, it may not directly help you with med, but I think a second language at VCE level looks good to future employers in any field. Secondly, while it's challenging, I think challenging subjects are good for developing effective study habits and persistence. Obviously if you hated French I wouldn't recommend doing it just for the challenge, but you seem to like the content.
Thirdly, on scaling. I have kind of an unpopular opinion on scaling compared to most people but I actually think it is a factor people should consider in subject selection. For example, I chose to do Latin partially because of the INSANE scaling. Now, if I'd hated Latin or not been very good at languages, this would have been a bad choice but given languages are one of my strengths anyway, it made sense to do Latin over another humanities subject I might also have enjoyed, e.g. history. I got a raw 35, which scaled to 49.63, meaning I'd have needed 50 in most other subjects to do better. This scaled score was worth a lot in terms of my ATAR, even compared to my 47 in Psych.
However, that's just my personal experience and I can understand why you'd opt for something easier as a year 11 student.
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Yo! Would like some advice please:
With subject selections coming up I really need to finalise what VCE subjects I’ll be doing in yr11 and 12. I’m hoping to do two 3&4s next year: chem and something else. I’m 100% certain on chem, but as for the ”something else”, I’m caught between LOTE (French) and HHD.
Pros of French:
• I did 1&2 last year, while I’d be diving straight into 3&4 HHD without any foundation knowledge
• The content seems more interesting
• Scaling — need I say more?
Pros of HHD:
• Content seems easier and more applicable
• I’m aiming for medicine so HHD seems more relevant
I know you shouldn’t focus on scaling but after hours of research on the highly reliable ATAR calculator I found that if I did HHD I would actually need a raw 44 or above across ALL my subjects for a 99, while if I did French there’d be a lot more wriggle room.
All sorts of advice appreciated. Thanks!
Howdy! Just a few notes as I read through your post (haven't yet read the replies above, so may be some overlap):
* Have you done Chem 1&2? I didn't do Chem at all but would imagine 1&2 would help for 3&4.
* If you don't do French/HHD in Year 11, do you still plan to do it in Year 12? Or is it a "next year or never" sort of scenario?
Pros of French:
• I did 1&2 last year, while I’d be diving straight into 3&4 HHD without any foundation knowledge
• The content seems more interesting
• Scaling — need I say more?
* I jumped into HHD 3&4 without 1&2 and was fine - don't think 1&2 is particularly necessary.
* Scaling - you probably do need to say more, haha. I know it's super appealing, but it scales well for a reason. I don't think you can really say like, "what if I get a 30 in each - how will they scale?" Because getting a 30 in each isn't even - one is a lot more competitive.
I know you shouldn’t focus on scaling but after hours of research on the highly reliable ATAR calculator I found that if I did HHD I would actually need a raw 44 or above across ALL my subjects for a 99, while if I did French there’d be a lot more wriggle room.
Tough, but doable. And also wouldn't be the case IMO, but that's kinda beside the point. What are your other subjects? :)