ATAR achievement help?

NS-HSC12

Hi there,
I’m a student who’s attempting to sit the HSC later this year and I have a few questions regarding my possible ATAR. I’m not an exceptional student and my marks are mostly in the 60’s or 70’s excluding Biology and Visual arts which is in the 80’s. I have my trials in about 2 weeks and assuming my marks and ranks are around the same since I haven’t exactly put my entire soul into studying due to other personal things also going on at the moment, what would my HSC marks have to be to get an ATAR of above 85(preferably 90)? Or if that is even possible? Thankyou

My marks so far:
• Biology: 85%
• Physics: 72%
• Mathematics Advanced: 65%
• English Advanced: 75%(approx.)
• Visual arts: 88%

My ranks:
• Biology: 20/100
• Physics: 36/90
• Mathematics Advanced: 120/150
• English Advanced: 100/160
• Visual arts: 26/50

For better context, my school is ranked in the 90’s(barely)

God

Hi! Hope all's well with you 🙂

When it comes to predicting study scores - it is really difficult. SAC scores - without the exam scores of your entire cohort - are meaningless. There are online calculators out there (eg. deakin's one ) - but these tend to over-estimate ur mark. This is because VCAA takes ur SAC ranking - not ur SAC scores.

Eg. If for (english say) - this was the SAC ranking:

Adam
Ben
Chris

And this was the exam ranking:

Adam
Chris
Ben

For English; 50% of ur study score comes from the SACs and 50% from the exam.

In this case - Adam's study score would be entirely derived from his exam score. This is because his exam ranking matches his SAC ranking. His SAC component will be some function of his exam score.

Ben's, on the other hand, will be derived from both his and Chris's exam score. Because he was higher in the SAC ranking, he will be 'scaled up'. His SAC component will be some function of Chris's exam score.

This allow's VCAA to standardise SAC's - and means you want your cohort to ace the exam - so if you stuff it up, you have a good year's work to fall back on.

My way of phrasing it is:

Don't let anyone beat you in the SAC's - who you will beat on the exam.

Anyway, Good luck with your year!
🙂

NS-HSC12

God
Hi! Sorry I'm a bit confused with all of this and I presume it is because of the different systems for the VCE AND HSC. Thanks anyway!

God

Sorry, I just realised you said HSC, not VCE. 🤦

I presume it's the same sought of thing for you guys.... But I could be wrong. Maybe someone else can help 🙂