I saw someone else do this kind of post and found it super helpful when I was doing VCE. I thought I'd post mine as well to anyone who's in the same position that I was last year.
I went to a reeeeaaally low ranking school. And by low ranking I mean, somewhere in the 430s out of the 533 schools in Victoria. 4 out of the 5 subjects I did also scaled down, so I felt like I was at a bit of a disadvantage. That being said, I still achieved a decent ATAR (imo).
As an added note, my SAC scores were high but got scaled down in the end because my cohort did not perform very well. I will include my (estimated) rank against my cohort throughout the year, for anyone who's curious. I also checked my SAC scores throughout the year against the grade distribution, hence the "low A+" and "high B+" notes you might see.
I did English, Literature, Further Mathematics, Health and Human Development and History: Revolutions.
I achieved an ATAR of 80.40
Health and Human Development Rank: 3/50ish
Final Study Score and Letter Grades (in order)
37 - A, A, A
UNIT 3
AOS 1 - 94% 47/50
AOS 2 - 94% 47/50
Unit 3 Average: 94% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
UNIT 4
AOS 1 - 98% 49/50
AOS 2 - 94% 47/50
Unit 4 Average: 96% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
Further Mathematics Rank: Probably 10/60
Final Study Score and Letter Grades (in order)
34 - B+, B+, B
UNIT 3
AOS 1 - 88% 35/40
AOS 2 - 90% 18/20
Unit 3 Average: 89%
UNIT 4
AOS 1 - 80% 16/20
AOS 2 - 85% 17/20
Unit 4 Average: 83%
UNIT 3/4 AVERAGE: 86% Mid A (scaled down 1 grade)
English Rank: 5/110ish
Final Study Score and Letter Grades (in order)
36 - A, A, B+
UNIT 3
AOS 1 - 88% 35/40
AOS 2 - 93% 28/30
AOS 3 - 80% 24/30
Unit 3 Average: 87% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
UNIT 4
AOS 1 - 95% 38/40
AOS 2 - 90% 54/60
Unit 4 Average: 93% Mid A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
Literature Rank: 1/6 (I know...)
Final Study Score and Letter Grades (in order)
37 - A, A, A
UNIT 3
AOS 1 - 89% 44.5/50
AOS 2 - 96% 48/50
Unit 3 Average: 93% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
UNIT 4
AOS 1 - 94% 47/50
AOS 2 - 88% 44/50, part 1: 23/25 part 2: 21/25
Unit 4 Average: 91% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
History: Revolutions Rank: 1/10
Final Study Score and Letter Grades (in order)
32 - A, A, C+
UNIT 3
AOS 1 - 93% 43/46
AOS 2 - 100% 50/50
Unit 3 Average: 97% High A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
UNIT 4
AOS 1 - 88% 44/50
AOS 2 - 85% 34/40
Unit 4 Average: 87% Low A+ (scaled down 1 grade)
Note about my History exam score: Ok. Look, I knew I did badly on the exam, but I didn't think I did that bad. To be honest, I still don't think I did that bad, because my GA1 and GA2 grades weren't even scaled down that much. Not that I know much about the scaling system, but I reckon either 1) they punched my results in wrong or 2) my exam result got scaled down because of the guy in my cohort who achieved a study score of less than 15. Never refuted it though because I was already pretty happy with my ATAR and I was overseas on results day.
Final Notes:
I obviously didn't achieve the best ATAR out there. However, it totally surpassed my expectations of 60s and got me in my first preference. For anyone who's in the same boat (a student in a low ranking school), remember that while SACs are important, exams are what will ultimately test you against the rest of the state. SACs are good because they can determine your rank against your cohort (putting you at a major advantage if you are higher up there) but when exam time comes, encourage everyone in your cohort to do their best. Their exam scores will play a part in your study scores as well.
If this post ended up being discouraging to someone, I just wanna say that I was really slack throughout the year, especially exam season. I started studying about a week before exams and just went ham the night before each one. So part of the SAC scaling was definitely my fault, and you can combat scaling by working harder than I did.
Best of luck to the class of 2019!
Home
Help
Search
Login
