What does it take to get an ATAR of approximately 99.95?

[YellowTongue]

I'm just curious; what did it take for you to get an incredibly high ATAR score? How many hours did you study for each day? Did you finish the course for all of your subjects before the year started? Do you have any tips for anyone who might want to achieve a score such as yours?

[HasibA]

i would just assume a lot of hard work , day-in and day-out, with some natural affinity for your subjects, with a bit of luck in regards to not dropping careless marks. Having said that, i'm also curious as to the logistics of attaining such ATAR!

[The Usual Student]

I'm just curious; what did it take for you to get an incredibly high ATAR score? How many hours did you study for each day? Did you finish the course for all of your subjects before the year started? Do you have any tips for anyone who might want to achieve a score such as yours?

also, they were probably generalist, in the sense that they were good at ALL there subjects. A lot of 99.95ers take subjects they like or are comfortable with, but they are also really good at English as well. Btw, you need a subject that scales above 50 so there is that

[heids]

'some natural affinity' lol

I reckon a combination of most of these:
- work so hard that it would blow your eyeballs out
- intense all-round inborn talent and intuition
- tutoring or at least very strict homework patterns enforced by parents whole life through
- absolute fascination with learning / general round-eyed-wonder from age of about 3 days old (the sort that's doing squares and cube roots of car numberplates *just for fun* at age 2)
- excellent knowledge of how they learn and how best to study and plan
- decent amount of sleep
- very early learning of course content

Maybe I'm exaggerating.  But I do believe that the difference between say a 98 and a 99.95 is like... huge.  There's no just 'yeah pretty good at the subject' or 'did lots of work' - 99.95 is hard core stuff, unless you're an absolute genius (which unfortunately most of us are not).

Though I suppose you just do what you have to do to get a 50, and repeat in all subjects, including a couple of scale-above-50 ones.  Sounds easy, right?

(sorry, as someone so-many-miles-away-from-99.95-that-it's-not-even-funny I'm really not being helpful here)

[appleandbee]

I'm pretty close friends with a few 99.95s, and contrary to popular belief, they did not study for 10 hours a day (the ones I'm good friends with studied for about 3 hours a day) or went to tutors. Instead they chose subjects strategically, didn't do any subjects (apart from English) that scaled down (although that's mainly because those subjects suit their interests and abilities), did Spesh and a high scaling language (got mid-high 40s raw in them). Some of them also did more subjects than the norm or two English subjects which increases the chance of having really good SS being counted in the primary 4.

They also had a really good balance in life (extensively involved in music etc.) and a perspective (didn't worry much about the hypothetics in VCE). They were also able to handle exams very well (they are a lot of really intelligent students who aren't able to do 'well' in exam).

Studies-wise, while they didn't spend the most time studying, they were very organised, strong work-ethic and were efficient with their time (the studying they did actually resulted in an improvement in understanding and results). They were fast and natural learners and understood concepts easily. Their understanding of the content was conceptual and thorough with literally no stone unturned. It is also worth noting that high -achievers don't achieve such things overnight, even early on in high-school, the signs were there...

[Glasses]

(sorry, as someone so-many-miles-away-from-99.95-that-it's-not-even-funny I'm really not being helpful here)

Wait, are you joking? Wouldn't your ATAR have been like 98.35?
I think you mean 1cm of 99.95!!!! 

[YellowTongue]

Thanks everyone 

So I gather that it takes a lot of work...

[dankfrank420]

Wait, are you joking? Wouldn't your ATAR have been like 98.35?
I think you mean 1cm of 99.95!!!! 

The difference between 99.95 and a 99 is far greater than the difference between a 90.95 and an 90, if that makes sense.

[zsteve]

Definitely. The difference between a 99.7 and a 99.95 in terms of aggregate is pretty significant.
Then again, those who do CSL + Latin + Specialist and achieve ~45s in each are in pretty good stead for 99.95 (brightsky)

[trajakaruna2021]

[mabajas76]

Studying for more than 5hr-8hr is required to memorise really well and achieve outstanding results.

I would recommend you do not do this, you will burn out.