How hard is it to get a 99+ ATAR, like actually?

Lixin

I know that everyone is aiming for the top of the top, and all students desire for the esteemed 99+ or god forbid the 99.95 ATAR; but how hard is it to actually achieve such a thing? I'm basically only posting this in spite of the old and now retired ATAR notes website which had many forums of 99+ students telling others what they did and how hard they studied to achieve their score. As such, are there any individuals who achieved incredibly high study scores or ATARs and are willing to share how hard it is to actually achieve such an unfathomable score. Another reason I'm asking this is because I have a family friend who achieved a 99.50 ATAR and he said that he honestly didn't study that hard. I don't believe him at all because he went to Melbourne High School which is a prestigious selective school in Victoria; meaning that studying till death would be the norm for those students and thus he thought that he honestly didn't study that hard. Apart from that, I would love to hear what ATAR goals some of you guys and girls are aiming for and why; also how you plan or did to achieve your goals.

humhon

Lixin What're your atar goals and plans? Also no matter how many people I ask, I can never get a clear understanding of whether it's achievable to get the 99+ 😐 Some people make it seem like a breeze, so I automatically assume that I'll be able to score that high too if I work hard consistently, but that makes it seem a little too easy, which it definitely isn't.

Autime

I can't say how hard it is to really achieve anything objectively, but I would suggest that achieving better results does not always mean putting in more time and effort. Better results require different processes, not necessarily more difficult ones. That being said, if you're measuring difficulty in terms of how focused they were when studying, then I would say that people who score in the 99+ range generally use techniques which require a higher cognitive load knowingly or unknowingly which leads to an improvement in their learning efficiency or have greater consistency within their study and revision strategy.

I'm aiming for a 90+ ATAR, mainly because I signed a document that says I have to jump into the Yarra river if I don't, and that the principal of my school told me that you need talent to get anything above 90 and I want to prove them wrong. Currently, I'm doing practice exams (partial or full) for business and data analytics almost daily and am aiming to do one section for English per day in addition to 3 essay plans (1 per section) every day. For physics, I'm making a cheat sheet and will work out how often I can complete exams for that later. For specialist, I've got to first of all finish the coursework, then revise my weak-points, and do a few practice exams. I look over the answers of any tests / exams I do and make annotations for areas for improvement based on exemplar responses and or teacher feedback.

Lixin

Autime. I think that you should be aiming higher, like honestly. Assuming that you are not lying about your work schedule, you sound like a student who could achieve a pretty high ATAR and study score. Nevertheless, I think that 90+ would be very achievable for you. Just wondering, what school do you go to?

aurora

Autime You can do it Autime!! 🙂

Autime

Lixin I go to Carwatha College, it's about average for a public school. I am aiming higher than 90, but my goal is to get at least 90. My consistency throughout the year has probably not been enough to get much higher, especially with specialist and physics. My study schedule has been non-existent for most of the year, so don't think that I've been doing such a quantity of work on a regular basis.

Lixin

Autime. Ok, lol.

rst

Melbourne High is arguably not prestigious, can testify. Some walls are purple

Nutella

rst What 💀

Lixin

rst. How is Melbourne high not prestigious? It's like top 3 for public schools every single year and always top 10 for all schools; you can see their placement on Better Education's ranking.

rst

Nutella
and mordini repeats speeches

Nutella

rst Most principals do that... it's so infuriating

rst

Lixin
The results are more cuz nearly everyone does tutoring
Teachers are average, especially in yr 9 and 10

Sine

I feel like a lot of people who get high atars try to play down the difficulty im not too sure why. One of my tutors actually spoke about this that often when students do really well in their subject (high 40s/50) they "forget" how much work they put in when they have asked the following year. Maybe to seem more naturally smart rather someone who put in a lot of effort and got good results. Im sure people in year 12 may have got high atars without doing as much as some would think but it is likely they had a lot of preparation well before year 12.

Lixin

Sine. Yeah, even at my public school which is not that good; a lot of egotistical student boldly say that they can easily get 40+ for every subject. Also why would anyone want to seem naturally smart when people could think you are successful due to hard work and a good work ethic? There is nothing admirable about being naturally smart but you should strive to be like people who work hard to get what they want.

Orb

Sine

My hypothesis is that there's a tall-poppy syndrome among a lot of Australians - it's more fun to celebrate the highly gifted and getting to a certain outcome without much work then it is to glorify the actual rigour required to get to a certain result.

I see in a lot of selective school students (especially common in schools like MHS and Macrob) where students often downplay the amount of work that they put in - because studying hard is seen as 'nerdy' and often it's easier to diminish the effort of others in 'working hard' for a certain outcome when you can get it 'so easily'

FloraD

rst This is actually so true, I've literally noticed this since high school began. Like Bruh someone's gotta fix it. (lol if I ever become a teacher or something someday)

chanelno28

I Go to a small private school and honestly, I don't understand this 99+ atar thing mainly because no one has gotten over a 97 at our school. And since it's a school in a country town (well like a country town) it's not competitive nor is it that important.

Emmy

As much as I'd love to get an ATAR over 90, the highest ATAR at my school last year was a 92 point something, so my expectations are low. I get straight A's, but my school (no offense) tends to perform to the lowest possible standard, so it's very hard to push myself further than I have to. I do think being from a good school influences how easy it is to get a 90+ ATAR, correct me if I'm wrong.

Autime

Emmy You can refer to this post: https://archive.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=160060.0 to get a more detailed idea of how SAC ranking impacts study scores. In short, so long as you are rank 1 in your cohort, you will receive marks that are all representative of how you performed on the exam, so how others in your class perform will have little to no impact on your study score - at least in its calculation. Although, in terms of students' attitude, higher performing schools definitely have an advantage from more dedicated cohorts.

Lixin

Orb. Two things; what do you mean by tall-poppy syndrome? Also, that's literally so true. People would rather want to think of themselves as the student who doesn't study but still gets A+ as compared to the student who put in hard work to get A+. Personally, I would rather be known as the latter because that actually gives merit to my accomplishments. I can't understand why you would put in so much work and then tell everyone else you barely tried; I don't know if this study culture is good or bad. I think it could be seriously damaging to the students who tried really hard to only get like a B or a C, so I personally always tell my friends that I tried really hard for a test that I did good on; being honest, as you should do with anything in life.