I go to a selective school, expecting a bad atar

[lacitam]

Hey guys

I currently attend Melbourne High and I haven't been doing too well in terms of sacs. I put in a lot of effort but yeah, no hope.
These are my subject and my range from lowest score to highest score this year:

Accounting: 45-59%
Bio: 92-100%
Chemistry: 37-53%
English Language: 53-75%
Methods: 23-66% (lol don't judge me)

...Yeah, as you can see, I'm not a bright student.
I just hope VCAA understands that mhs has hard as sacs and scales me up to that 90+ atar 
I'm just joking, but if you go to a selective school and already graduated, please give me some tips! Better yet, please post your scores to make mine look better.

[Owlbird83]

I can't really give you much advice, but my teachers tell us that they need to make sacs hard enough that they can separate out everyone well. Since you go to a selective entry school everyone must be pretty high achievers so they probably need to make the sacs harder than regular schools to make sure they are ranking your cohort well, other wise everyone might be clumped at the 90-100% mark and they wouldn't be able to separate you. My school is pretty average so high marks at my school might be average or low at your school. My teachers remind us a lot that the actual percentage for sacs don't matter, just the rankings in the cohort.
 

[lacitam]

Thanks for your input!
The sacs here are insanely difficult, but the subjects will be scaled up.
A good friend of mine graduated from mhs in 2016, he sucked shit at specialist (probs near the bottom of the cohort) but still managed a 25 study score.

[brenden]

Keep trying hard, that's all there is to it. You'll be fine, your SACs will moderate well.

[Sine]

Assuming sac difficulty has stayed consistent across the years. 92%-100% on bio sacs at MHS is seriously good. In the past I've heard a few people average low 90's at MHS getting scaled to 100 and got high 40 study scores.

[appleandbee]

For what it's worth, I went to Macrob. For Chemistry, I averaged 55-65% and got a high 30s SS (the exam wasn't too difficult that year). I'm not really what average SAC scores are like for corresponding subjects at MHS, although I have heard that 50-60% scores for Methods are fairly common there. I'm not in a position to provide predictions or anything like that as such but it's mainly depends on your rank in the cohort,  for example, at Mac.rob the median scores for Chemistry and Methods are 36-37, so if you are below average in the cohort, it's unlikely you'll get 40+ unless you make significant improvement and ace the exam. There's also about 15 in the cohort every year who get 20-25 for Methods. Similarly in MHS, approximately 30% of students got below 90 ATARs, these students were most likely not ranked highly. I'm not trying to scare you off here, but I think that students in selective school assume that SAC scaling will solve everything and get complacent as a result. But yes, with hard work and some help from subject scaling (I know that in high-performing subjects like English at Mac.rob, it's possible to get scaled up by 3 letter grade brackets like B to A+), respectable scores are not out of reach.

[Lear]

I think that students in selective school assume that SAC scaling will solve everything and get complacent as a result..

This so much. Too many around me put so much faith into moderation. Even to the extent where they put in less effort because ‘VCAA will scale up all our SACs’

Please do not do this.

[lacitam]

For what it's worth, I went to Macrob. For Chemistry, I averaged 55-65% and got a high 30s SS (the exam wasn't too difficult that year). I'm not really what average SAC scores are like for corresponding subjects at MHS, although I have heard that 50-60% scores for Methods are fairly common there. I'm not in a position to provide predictions or anything like that as such but it's mainly depends on your rank in the cohort,  for example, at Mac.rob the median scores for Chemistry and Methods are 36-37, so if you are below average in the cohort, it's unlikely you'll get 40+ unless you make significant improvement and ace the exam. There's also about 15 in the cohort every year who get 20-25 for Methods. Similarly in MHS, approximately 30% of students got below 90 ATARs, these students were most likely not ranked highly. I'm not trying to scare you off here, but I think that students in selective school assume that SAC scaling will solve everything and get complacent as a result. But yes, with hard work and some help from subject scaling (I know that in high-performing subjects like English at Mac.rob, it's possible to get scaled up by 3 letter grade brackets like B to A+), respectable scores are not out of reach.

Thanks for your input
I don't know where you read it, but 50-60% is definitely not the average. MHS doesn't treat their methods and specialist classes leniently (had to beg so hard to stay in methods this year), I'm seriously an outlier here (there are a few people who are just A BIT worse than me). There's no way I can ace the exam, since I have been self studying this whole year.
I really don't want to be that sheep but my teachers are shit anyways, I don't even bother listening in class, the only times I see them is for one-on-one questions.

[lacitam]

Assuming sac difficulty has stayed consistent across the years. 92%-100% on bio sacs at MHS is seriously good. In the past I've heard a few people average low 90's at MHS getting scaled to 100 and got high 40 study scores.

Thanks!
The thing is that my cohort is pretty good at biology so 90+ is  pretty average... I don't know if VCAA looks at sacs or rankings or whatever but the biology sacs here are incredibly easy, so that's probably not good in terms of study scores.

[clovvy]

Thanks!
The thing is that my cohort is pretty good at biology so 90+ is  pretty average... I don't know if VCAA looks at sacs or rankings or whatever but the biology sacs here are incredibly easy, so that's probably not good in terms of study scores.

if your cohort is very strong, that is a good thing because even with a bad rank, if everyone gets 90+ in the exam, those mark differences will mean almost nothing at the end...

[lach_chau04]

Oof that’s harsh man, but hey at least you went to mhs, keep doing well and you’ll get there in the end don’t stress. Perhaps PM me things that ur stuck on? I might be able to help...but I’m a Year 9 doing part yr 10 work so I don’t think that’s anything ur level (ur probs 1-2 yrs higher than me) but yeah I’m always open

[lacitam]

Year 12.
Thanks buddy, will let you know

[lacitam]

Completely forgot about this thread.
I received an atar that I wasn't happy with at the start, but now I don't really care about. It was expected anyways lol. In case anyone missed it, here were my scores:

English Lang: 23
Accounting: 20
Biology: 48
Chemistry: 20
Methods: 25

WITH AN AMAZING ATAR OF 68.15
Feel free to laugh at my scores and be bewildered at how I got a 48 in one subject and ate shit on the rest

Hope you guys have a fantastic day!

[Lear]

Haha that 48 is amazing, you must really enjoy Bio!