When you think about your dream uni course, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it the career it will lead to? The subjects you’ll get to study? The networking opportunities you’ll have access to?

Or is the first thing you think about the lowest selection rank you need to get in?

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was in Year 12, but I was fairly confident that I was going to get good results. Unfortunately, that understanding was partly what made it so hard for me to decide what courses I should put on my preference list. I had lots of people telling me that I would be able to pursue anything I wanted, and not only did having such a huge range of options overwhelm me when I didn’t really know where to start with my research, I also felt a lot of pressure to choose a course that would “use up” my score.

So what happened? I ended up choosing a course I wasn’t really interested in based on my ENTER (old school ATAR), spent two and a half years studying really hard trying to make it work when it just wasn’t, felt miserable and lost, finally worked out what I wanted to do, made the changes I needed to at uni and ended up in a career I love.

What could I have done differently?

All’s well that ends well, but if I could go back and give my 17 year old self some advice, it would be to completely separate my estimated results from the decision making process. The reality is that I wanted to do well in Year 12, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could achieve. However, I should have dealt with what I wanted to do when I finished school totally differently (Find out what to do if you don’t know what you want to study yet!)

Let’s get back to you. I want you to do a gut check now and think about your first preference on your preference list. Why is it there? Is it something you really want to do? Or is it a course with a lowest selection rank around what you think you might get? And, most importantly, are you thinking of changing it if you get an ATAR much higher or much lower than you’re expecting?

Because that’s a massive clue that it might not really be what you want to do.

Think of it this way. If you end up getting an ATAR much higher than the lowest selection rank you need to get into your first preference, then congratulations! You should be rapt because you’re likely to get an offer to your dream uni course!

If you end up getting an ATAR that’s lower than the lowest selection rank you need to get into your first preference, then that’s what the other seven preferences are for. The other courses you list should:

• Be a pathway to your first preference

• Be the same course at a different tertiary institution, or

• Be a course that qualifies you to work in a career helping the same (or similar) people in the same (or similar) way, or solving the same (or similar) problems

Your first preference should be the course you absolutely want to do, no matter what. Forget about ATARs, work out what sort of work you want to be doing, and then plan how you’re going to get there! Remember, you don’t need a better ATAR, you need a better plan.