Ep 58 - How Are ATARs Calculated?

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What we’re talking about:

In this solo episode I’m answering the question “How are ATARs calculated?” because it’s so relevant to all students from Year 10 through to the end of Year 12, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there about how it all works, which causes significant stress and anxiety for students. By explaining how it really works, my aim is to empower you and remove some of that stress, helping you focus on what you can control and worry less about what you can’t.

1:45 - Start with your SAC ranking

Understand how your Unit 3&4 SAC results contribute to your study scores for each of your VCE subjects. Spoiler alert: your actual marks don’t matter. It’s your ranking compared to your classmates that’s important in this step.

6:26 - How do they work out your SAC scores?

Learn how VCAA uses the external exam results for your VCE subjects to calculate the SAC results they will use to work out your study score. This is how they fix the issue that students at different schools do different SACs.

11:29 - How are VCE study scores scaled?

You’ve likely heard about scaling of VCE study scores because it seems to be something that students really focus on when they’re choosing subjects. It’s important to know that subjects are scaled based on how well the cohort of students in one subject do in all of their other subjects, and it’s done to make a study score of 30 equivalent to a study score of 30 in any other subject.

13:45 - How are your study scores used to calculate your ATAR?

Find out how your study scores are added together to calculate an aggregate score, and then how that number is converted to a ranking, comparing your results to everyone else who has completed VCE in the same year.

15:36 - Why is it important to understand how ATARs are calculated?

Now you know how it works, you can focus on the things that will actually help you get a better an ATAR and let go of the things you can’t control.