does having a 6th subject give you an advantage?

[jenerator]

hey there, subject selection is approaching very soon. This year i am completing biol and french. Having to complete 2 3/4's this year, I'm not sure if i should do 4 subjects next year or 3. Will studying a 6th subject be pointless? I mean 10% isnt very much

[pi]

Even if you 10 SS in ur 6th, it could be very important in the end

[WhoTookMyUsername]

i believe flasha on this forum did quite well in 5 subjects but still only got 97.x, a 5th subject can definitely hellp

[tony3272]

Depends on where you're aiming. Generally an extra 3-5 extra aggregate scores can add around 2-4 to your ATAR around the 80 mark.

[pi]

i believe flasha on this forum did quite well in 5 subjects but still only got 97.x, a 5th subject can definitely hellp

ONLY 97?

That aint so easy you know?

[jenerator]

i believe flasha on this forum did quite well in 5 subjects but still only got 97.x, a 5th subject can definitely hellp

ONLY 97?

That aint so easy you know?

ahahhah agreed!

[tony3272]

Also im compelled to just tell you to go for a 6th subject, but if it's the workload that you might have trouble with, then i think it's best not to.
Other alternatives though would be just to pick something you enjoy (so it doesn't seem like a lot of work) or to just pick something easy.

[jenerator]

yeah, i've thought about it. Since my subjects are not "hardcore", i should do a 6th subject

[Menang]

3 subjects in Year 12 is really little.
TBH, I'm doing 4 this year and I'm finding it more than manageable.

Personally, I reckon it'll be a bit of a cop out if you don't do 4

(Also, I see you go to macrob. They won't allow you to do 3 in Year 12, jussayin')

[Greatness]

Yeah just do a 4th, that 10% can be the difference between you getting into your desired course and not! So it's definitely worth it.

Just looking at the agregate table thing from 2010:
say you got a 30 for your 6th, thats 3 aggregate points.
167.9->93 atar
170.4->94 atar
173.2->95 atar
Imo that's a massive boost and you should be able to cope with 4 subjects.

[tony3272]

The aggregate table swarley is referring to is this (i assume). someone posted it on here a while ago.

[b^3]

Well your doing 2 subjects in yr 11, and I'm guessing you're doing well in them, then 4 subjects should be fine, and as everyone keeps saying, that little bit could mean alot.

[taiga]

i believe flasha on this forum did quite well in 5 subjects but still only got 97.x, a 5th subject can definitely hellp

Ditch this elitist selective school mentality right now, or I will seriously ban you and won't give a crap about whether people think I'm being harsh or not. I don't care if it conflicts with your expectations, but in saying what you said you're conflicting with the 97% of kids who would quite clearly be very happy with that score.

I don't want to hear any justification of your thoughts as I've seen you do this time and time again. You need to realize that you're being extremely condescending in doing that (and even worse that you had to go out and name the person), and if you bring this attitude into any further education outside of the Melbourne High School bubble, or real life in general, you won't do very well.

An ATAR of 97 is not only a great score, but even for the school you go to it is still a minority that get's above this score.

--

Jenerator, you'd probably have to check with your school whether they'd let you do that, because a lot of top end schools are quite conservative with their VCE policy. As for the 10% thing, check out the end of the scaling report for the aggregate scores. http://www.vtac.edu.au/pdf/scaling_report.pdf

Most people will receive a 6th subject score between 2.5 and 4.5, and you can see quite easily that in adding those small amounts your ATAR can actually increase by quite a lot.

[WhoTookMyUsername]

why does everyone on the forum always see the worst possible intepretation of something?

what i meant by ONLY
is that
Business Management ~ 50 Legal Studies ~ 45 English ~ 44 Physical Education ~ 40 Further Mathematics ~ 33

if you look at those scores which are extremely good, with 3 including english above 44, you would expect a score of 99%+ based on what study scores people with 99 + have got.

devraj, you are obviously using my personal aims which i may or may not achieve. I am not an idiot, i know not everyone wants or needs 99.5+. I  am simply using a case scenario as evidence, that not doing a 6th subject will lower your expected ATAR by a (possibly) significant amount.

i could have just as easily said,


oh flasha got 50  , 50 ,50, 50, 50 but only got 99.8 ??, as i would expect people with all 50s to get 99.95
not because i regard anything less than 99.95 as 'bad', 99.8 is obviously ridiculously good and no - one in their right mind would turn down a 99.8

only is not referring in anyway to my expectations, but referring to what i expected him to get after seeing his scores (in his sig ) . I almost Pm'ed him about it but then i realised he only did five subjects.

97.2% is a great score obviously, it means your better than 97.2% of victoria which is by no means a small feat.

I don't think these kinds of rash judgements on the forum are fair dev.
To grow as a community and forum, you don't want a shitstorm every time there is a misplaced word. It should be a welcoming community that gives people a place to relax
you should at least give people a chance to justify their statement if its not obviously a personal attack.

[taiga]

If you need an essay to justify what several people have obviously taken offense to, perhaps you shouldn't have posted it in the first place.

I'm not going to go back and find your other posts (both here and elsewhere), but you've got to realize that it is condescending, and what concerns me the post is that people can post this sorta stuff and not realize it.

My concern for the forum community is the exact reason for which I called you out on it. To any newcomer here to see people undermining good scores can make this place seem like some sort of elitist high scorers club, which is against the principle of this place. If there are a heap of posts similar to yours on here the forum definitely does not look welcoming and essentially makes us look like 99 or gtfo

If you think you're making a well reasoned argument sticking to the topic, go ahead and add an increment of 3.5, 4.0, or even 5.5 if you wish and see whether in effect your supposed contention is correct. On that note I don't really want to be referring to any individuals from this point onwards because I think it is just rude.

Its also equally annoying to have someone going on like "omg how did you not get 99" on multiple occasions. Also familiarize yourself with the mechanics of scaling / aggregate, because there is a system in place and most people that receive their atar will understand it.

I've seen you do this in your little selective school bubble, where you can get away with this without offending others, but it does not have a place here.

You can go ahead and justify your statement in hindsight, but the effect of your initial post remains the same to anyone reading it for the first time.