Are six subjects too many for year 12?

[Chanelbvs]

Hello, I want to do five VCE subjects and a uni subject this year but I'm not sure if its too much.  My subjects currently are English language, methods, extended investigation, algorithmics and history at Latrobe but I wanted to do psychology as well. I did biology and psychology last year and I found psychology to be pretty easy but I didn't put in much effort and got a study score of 35 so I thought if I did it again this year I could get a better score but I don't want to drop any of my other subjects, I thought it might not be too much since I did it last year and I already have notes so it won't be as much work but I'm not sure.  Do you think six subjects are too many? How did other people that did six subjects in year 12 find it?

[nerdmmb]

Though I'm not taking 6 subjects in year 12, I can assure you that it's definitley manageable provided that you commit yourself to your work. And if you feel that you are losing interest in one or two of your subjects, then just remember that you can still do extremely well and that they won't affect your overall result that much if they end up in your bottom two.

Alternatively, if you feel that the workload is a bit too much, then rather than dropping any subject/s now, just experiment with them and see how you go. You have plenty of time in term one to drop them if it seems a bit too much too handle.

Then again, remember that if VCAA have allowed yr 12s to take 6 subjects in thier final year, then you have no reason to believe you can't do well. Everyone initially struggles but with practice, you'll improve significantly and who knows, you may even achieve a better result than people taking 4 or 5 subjects.

Either way, trust your instincts and best of luck!

[brenden]

Wait so. You're doing 7 subjects, and you want to repeat one of those 7?

[Chanelbvs]

Thank you for your reply nerdmmb, I think I might try it then drop a subject if it's too hard.
Yes Ned Nerb I'm doing a total of seven subjects. I had to do English language, methods and biology and the others all sounded good so I decided to do all of them, I don't care if one doesn't contribute to my atar and I wanted to repeat psychology to get a better score

[heids]

My brothers both did 5 subjects + a uni subject in year 12 while I just did 5 subjects, and one got exactly the same as me and the other 0.05 above - seems to me that it evens out (you do slightly worse in all your subjects but get the extra aggregate), but doing more subjects makes you learn more broadly which is an advantage.

[brenden]

Thank you for your reply nerdmmb, I think I might try it then drop a subject if it's too hard.
Yes Ned Nerb I'm doing a total of seven subjects. I had to do English language, methods and biology and the others all sounded good so I decided to do all of them, I don't care if one doesn't contribute to my atar and I wanted to repeat psychology to get a better score

In that case, it seems your decision to repeat Psych can only be for reasons related to pride and is not related to what's best for your ATAR. Indeed, it very well could be detrimental to your ATAR: what if you now have two exams on one day? What if you do a few less practice exams per subject than you otherwise would have? What if doing Psych takes more attention that you anticipated and you start to get sick more frequently from stress and/or a bigger workload?

Personally, I don't think it makes any sense for your ATAR to repeat Psychology so I would advise against it. I mean... Let's put a numerical value to the "risk" and "reward" expected. The reward expected from Psych, best case scenario, might be an extra .5 onto your aggregate, which might even be meaningless to your ATAR. So let's call reward expected ".5" out of 10. Let's call risk, say, 3/10. I choose 3 because it's not huge. It's not 10/10 risky, but there is still some risk involved. Here, your risk is five times bigger than potential reward. If this were business, you'd take your money and run far away :p.

What score would you be aiming for anyway? To jump from a 35 to 45 may as well be a whole new subject. Anyway, I understand there may be personal reasons you want to repeat (feel proud of all your scores etc or something), but I think justifying what ultimately looks like a disadvantageous decision with it is not a good idea.

It'd be like going into $15,000 of debt for a new car when you already have a fully functional 2007 Holden Astra. Sure, it might satisfy you on a personal level to have a nice car, but ultimately, it just doesn't make sense to do it.

[Chanelbvs]

I'm not too worried about the exams as I will still only have 4 exams at the end of the year because history doesn't have an end of year exam and extended investigation has a presentation instead of an exam and I will probably only have practice exams for English language, methods and psychology.

I thought it might be useful to repeat psychology because it would be easier to focus on it and get a higher score in something that I had already done and get a 35 in a new subject than put a lot of work into a new subject and probably still get a lower score than I would if I repeated psychology.
I also thought psychology would be easier this year because I had problems outside of school last year and changed schools a few weeks into term 3 which affected my marks so I won't have that problem this year but I am worried about getting sick from the bigger workload.

[Chanelbvs]

Thanks bangla_lok, it's nice to know other people have successfully done 5 vce subjects and a uni subgect in year 12.

[Orb]

In that case, it seems your decision to repeat Psych can only be for reasons related to pride and is not related to what's best for your ATAR.

Bingo. I think that's the main reason a lot of people repeat subjects. In my case, it's part pride, part the fact that i need to do 5 in Year 12 anyway (figured i'd be better off repeating methods than taking something else).

I think I read a post on this other student who was thinking of repeating with a 49, like whateven

[chelonianlover]

Bingo. I think that's the main reason a lot of people repeat subjects. In my case, it's part pride, part the fact that i need to do 5 in Year 12 anyway (figured i'd be better off repeating methods than taking something else).

I think I read a post on this other student who was thinking of repeating with a 49, like whateven

Are you referring to that poor person whose parents are forcing him/her to do Methods again to get 50 instead of their current SS of 49, and they came on AN for advice?

[Orb]

Are you referring to that poor person whose parents are forcing him/her to do Methods again to get 50 instead of their current SS of 49, and they came on AN for advice?

Yeah, that guy

Unlucky