Probability of 98+ ATAR? PLEASE HELP

[stressedyeareight]

Hello Everyone,
I am aiming for a 98+ ATAR to do law at Monash University.
I am not exceptionally bright but I am quite good at languages. I plan to do both French and Latin. I’m getting mainly A’s at school. Although I do my schoolwork, I do not go out of my way to study during the holidays etc. I am not the typical self motivated type (which many aiming at a high ATAR appear to be)
Do I still stand a chance at getting a 98+ ATAR with my double languages or does scaling only play a small role?
*i am in Year 9 this year - is it too late to develop good study habits? If I start studying diligently now do I stand a chance at getting a 98+ ATAR?
I really appreciate your advice!

[stressedyeareight]

Do you recommend any ways to start studying more efficiently.
Although I want to aim high, I procrastinate too much.
I am easily distracted and don’t try as hard as I should.
Do you have any strategies to get started and ways to improve my focus?

[Joseph41]

Hello Everyone,
I am aiming for a 98+ ATAR to do law at Monash University.
I am not exceptionally bright but I am quite good at languages. I plan to do both French and Latin. I’m getting mainly A’s at school. Although I do my schoolwork, I do not go out of my way to study during the holidays etc. I am not the typical self motivated type (which many aiming at a high ATAR appear to be)
Do I still stand a chance at getting a 98+ ATAR with my double languages or does scaling only play a small role?
*i am in Year 9 this year - is it too late to develop good study habits? If I start studying diligently now do I stand a chance at getting a 98+ ATAR?
I really appreciate your advice!

Hey there! Great to have you around the forums.

Is Year 9 too late to develop good study habits? Absolutely not - you have a bucket of time. The fact that you've even made this thread demonstrates that you care about your marks, and that's honestly already put you way ahead of a lot of other students.

You could literally be averaging 20% this year and still be in with a chance of a 98+ ATAR (not that that's something to aim for - always do your best!). The point I'm trying to make is that Year 9 doesn't directly contribute to your ATAR - nor does Year 10, nor do Units 1&2 subjects. You have literally years to hone your skills and study techniques.

To answer your specific questions:

Although I do my schoolwork, I do not go out of my way to study during the holidays etc.
I didn't either in Year 9! In fact, unless you have specific holiday homework that's been assigned to you, my best advice would simply be to enjoy your time off, and try not to think about school much at all!

Do I still stand a chance at getting a 98+ ATAR with my double languages or does scaling only play a small role?
I'd encourage you to pretty much exclude scaling from your subject choices. It sounds like you enjoy languages and are good at them, which is awesome, but I wouldn't choose them as VCE subjects just because they traditionally scale well. I got a 99+ ATAR with the following subjects:

1. English Language - scaled up a tiny bit
2. Health and Human Development - scaled down
3. Psychology - scaled down
4. Business Management - scaled down
5. Further Maths - scaled down
6. Visual Communication Design - scaled down

Again, try not to stress too much about your marks and stuff if you can avoid it. It's obviously great to do well, and you should always try your best, but you still have a long time to get into "VCE mode" and really go hard for a great ATAR! Honestly, I think the best thing you can do is to try to keep a good balance between school and other life stuff, and ask as many questions as you have on these forums.

P.S. I'm going to move this thread to the general Victorian Education Discussion board, as I think that's more relevant for a fairly general thread like this. I've also deleted the duplicate - if you can, try to just ask each question in one place, just to keep the forums easy to navigate. If you're not sure where to post something, shout out! Or, at worst, we can just move them to a more appropriate place, like I'm doing here.

Let us know what you think!

[sweetiepi]

Do you recommend any ways to start studying more efficiently.
Although I want to aim high, I procrastinate too much.
I am easily distracted and don’t try as hard as I should.
Do you have any strategies to get started and ways to improve my focus?

Everyone's different with how they work, however, these articles below may have some useful strategies!

https://atarnotes.com/study-apps/

https://atarnotes.com/procrastination-pit-falls/

https://atarnotes.com/beating-procrastination/

Hope this is of some help!

[stressedyeareight]

Thank you so much. You don’t know how reassuring your advice is!
Nowadays there is a lot of competition even in younger year levels. Many of my friends are studying diligently in the holidays (despite only being in Year 9)
Although I am also aiming for a high ATAR, I feel as if I am not self motivated and I struggle to do work myself if it is not asssigned to me by a teacher.
Congratulations on your amazing score. When did you start studying? Did you always have good study habits throughout high school?

[Joseph41]

Thank you so much. You don’t know how reassuring your advice is!
Nowadays there is a lot of competition even in younger year levels. Many of my friends are studying diligently in the holidays (despite only being in Year 9)
Although I am also aiming for a high ATAR, I feel as if I am not self motivated and I struggle to do work myself if it is not asssigned to me by a teacher.
Congratulations on your amazing score. When did you start studying? Did you always have good study habits throughout high school?

It doesn't surprise me that there's a lot of competition at all. No doubt that can be difficult to deal with! In the end, though, you can't really compare your situation to your friends' situations. For example, Person A could study for 10 hours, and Person B could study for two hours, but Person B could actually get more out of that study session that Person A. There are so many factors at play. I used to compare myself to others, too, but it's really not worth the time.

In Year 9, did I ever do any work or study not assigned to me by a teacher? Honestly not that I can recall. I guess I studies for tests or whatever if I had them upcoming, but even then, barely. Again, not advocating this as what you should do, but it's what I did.

Did I always have good study habits? I don't know - I always tried hard but, as above, didn't really extend myself to extra study or studying through the holidays or whatever. I actually think this helped me a lot in the end. My school had "academic excellence" awards at the end of each year for good results across the board, and I never received one of those until Year 12, when I was Dux of my school haha. You don't have to study 24/7 between now and your final Year 12 exam to get a high ATAR.

[stressedyeareight]

Thank you so much for putting in all this effort to attach the links to these videos. This is really kind of you! I will watch these now.

[readiii]

Yes! It's great you are already thinking about this at such a young year level. When I was in year 9, I was still thinking about videogames, so you're on a good path. I personally didn't look at scaling when I was in year 12. I did VCE SL Chinese, and although it scaled up by 10/11, I didn't really enjoy it that much (it ended up being my bottom 2 subject), but if you're enjoying languages then yes, this could be a great boost.

For a year 9, it's best if you take it easy for now, and start getting serious later. A lot of my good memories were from junior high school years, so its best to not fill up your teenagehood with studies. Up to you, of course, but I'd chill out for now.

Good luck.

[PhoenixxFire]

Hey!

I certainly wouldn't be worrying about how much work you're doing in year 9! Doing extra homework now isn't going to help your ATAR, and might actually hurt it (you certainly don't want to learn to hate study). It's important to enjoy other parts of your life, and to develop other skills that will help you later in life, not just spend lots of time studying.

Rather than doing any unnecessary homework or extra study, challenge yourself to set a routine (there will always be times when you're not motivated, having a good routine/study habits will help you to keep working when that happens). For example, making sure that you do any set homework as soon as you can, not leaving it to the last minute and making sure you do it to the best of your ability, not just well enough to not get told off.

Developing the ability to avoid procrastinating now will help you in the long run with high school and uni, whereas doing extra study will only make you feel busy without you really benefiting much.

Other good things you could start doing now that would help you out later could be
Academic things like:
- Asking teachers any questions you have
- Completing all work that you're supposed to be doing in class (this isn't to say that you shouldn't talk to your friends or anything like that though! Socialising is important too and it's totally normal to chat in class, especially at your age)

But also things that aren't academic, such as:
- Making sure you're staying healthy
   - Exercising regularly (particularly group sport, as that has the added benefit of making/keeping friends)
   - Learning to recognise when you're feeling stressed, and learning ways that work for you to reduce that stress
- Developing your leadership skills
- Getting a part time job
- Discovering a hobby

I guess what I'm trying to say is that school isn't the only important thing in life, yes you might need to get a high atar to get into the uni course you want, but that certainly doesn't mean it should be your sole focus for the next 3 and a half years. Developing other interests and priorities outside of school will help to give you something that you enjoy doing, and therefore a way to relax when you do get to year 12 and things start getting more stressful.

[sara.vce]

Do you recommend any ways to start studying more efficiently.
Although I want to aim high, I procrastinate too much.
I am easily distracted and don’t try as hard as I should.
Do you have any strategies to get started and ways to improve my focus?

I think practise questions are the best way to study efficiently - if you don't know the content you can use your notes for the first few tests and then ease off them (it's still useful because you're getting used to the way questions are asked and how to answer them).
Otherwise, mindmaps are awesome because you can link different concepts together really clearly.
Beating procrastination and distractions is really hard but exercising helps me to clear my mind and focus on what I need to do.
Hope that helps and good luck!

[stressedyeareight]

hey guys quick update - just like to say i STILL havent started studying diligently yet

[Bri MT]

hey guys quick update - just like to say i STILL havent started studying diligently yet

It sounds like you might be getting a bit overwhelmed by stress and/or anxiety, leading to you procrastinate.

You've still got time,  just try to start small and build up. Maybe there's a low effort or otherwise less intimidating study habit you can use (e.g. subject videos,  5 min of flashcards). Once you've got that habit going you'll likely to it easier to step it up a bit at a time.

You might also find it useful to learn more about ways you can tackle stress and anxiety (this could also include going to a professional). E.g. the headspace website has some good information about this.