Low ATAR Scorers Come Here!!

[23serenity]

First of all, I do not mean to offend anyone by 'Low atar scorers'

But by this I mean students who achieved a <70 atar or <30 study score

I would like to know your stories of how you worked your way through to study something that required a 90+atar like Med, pharm etc

I've seen many students score 90+ and tell us how they achieve it. But what about the students who want to achieve this but cannot? , I want to find inspiration and need so much motivation so I am putting this up!

Pls drop your stories below!

Mod edit (K888) - changed title from all caps

[K888]

Hi 23serenity

Apologies if this is slightly off topic, but I feel like it's necessary to preface this by saying that the idea of what a "good" or "bad" ATAR is is so arbitrary, and it's entirely based on our perceptions, and to some extent, the culture surrounding ATARs - we place so much emphasis on getting a super high ATAR, when in reality, it's the key to a very small front door.

I got an ATAR in the range of 97, but I got a raw study score of 29 for Methods. It was by far my weakest subject, and you know what? I was happy with that score. Maybe I had the potential to score a bit higher, but when I got my results in December last year, I was not disappointed when I saw that 29.
I wanted to share this, because in the end, it had absolutely no impact on my ability to get into the course I wanted to get into. With scaling, it legitimately contributed 3.30 points to my ATAR aggregate - a drop in the ocean compared to what my top 4 contributed. Even scoring a few points higher would have had almost no effect on my ATAR. I just had a look in ATAR Calc, and scoring a 39 (10 points higher!) wouldn't have even raised my ATAR by 1.
If any of you have perhaps received a study score that was lower than you expected, it can be demoralising. But it doesn't necessarily have to grossly impact your ATAR, nor does it have to impact your future ambitions.

I have a family member who got an ATAR of ~70, and is now studying Arts/Law at Monash.
My brother didn't get an ATAR in the 90s, which he needed for what he wanted to do. He ended up doing a different course, and met his girlfriend (who is now his wife!) as a result If he had have gotten his first preference, he never would have met her.
A friend of mine got an ATAR of ~30 (iirc) and recently graduated from Nursing near the top of their class.

Your ATAR doesn't define you, and it certainly doesn't have to stop you from doing what you want to do in the long run.

Perhaps not the sort of story you were looking for, but I hope this helped.

[strawberries]

^^yeah agree with K888

I know someone who got an ATAR in the 60s but is doing pharm and is doing quite well (don't know that much about them, but she did go to a rural school and stuff)

but yeah, I got <30 study score for most of my subjects but it didn't really affect it much as I still got into my course. and my uni average is better than my grades in vce.
I guess I just worked harder and wanted it more?? and also I really enjoy what I'm doing rn
^^I know this isn't exactly what you were asking for but yeah