How do i become ok with getting a low atar? (+a note to myself in december) (2 Viewers)

[fesi2w3]

Thank you all for your advice!! I'm feeling a lot better since i made this post...this was very helpful to read, thank you all dearly


Ive come to realise since that my desire to get a high atar was more due to external pressures as opposed to what i truly want...i love school a lot, i love every single one of my subjects by themselves but I'm not the sort of person who is very good at the memorisation and tests under timed conditions kind of thing. I panic, and my brain has about 3 squillion things going on in my head at once, and i cannot for the life of me hold on to any of them. Its frustrating, i have the memory of a squishy raisin!

I like to take my time with things...which is certainly not a very productive way to do things in the hsc. I am on the asd spectrum...this may be why, LOL! It leads to me learning some things in really awesome detail, but its unhelpful in terms of productivity.

I mean ill still do things under timed conditions, I'm ok with that! But for multiple subjects at once? Bah, i struggle with it. My teachers tend to joke that i am a bit intense about the research side of things...in a test i truly find it hard to move on unless i understand the question. Im not an efficient person, and that's ok - its an aspect of myself that's impossible to change for the hsc. And I'm a bit stubborn to change it if ill be honest. Going into huge depth into one subject, as opposed to just a little on multiple, is what i love. Which is why I'm excited for uni!

The HSC is only for NESA, Its only for a university...i got quite fancy results in year 11 so maybe SRS will work out! We shall see...

I am told by people that the hsc is something they expect of me to be high...clearly, if i love all my subjects, that should shine through in my atar? Which is why i feel quite guilty about this all.

I am just scared of people being disappointed.

But i have found it really helpful to ground myself, and to try and figure out whats important to me...not to expectations, or my perceived expectations, of others. Whats important to me is that, at the end of the hsc, i am learning something...be it about my subjects, or about organisation. Not necessarily what number i get.

I have come to much better terms with this all after looking at the hsc less as a reflection of how much i care about my subjects, but as a reflection of how i did on this particular year.

I still love to learn things. I don't want to give that up after the hsc. I want to keep at it until i am too old to read, lol. Thats whats important. I am a goo goo gaga baby in terms of how much more there is to learn...i cant wait to get back into it again.

HA. Nerd....amirite?

From one neurodivergent to the next, the HSC course is totally not built for us at all TT I relate so much, unfortunately! My mark can flip between 100 and 70 in the span of a couple of months depending on my condition for the exam, marks are never an indicator of how much you care about a course, or how good you are at it. I'm glad you were able to come to terms with everything, and I wish you luck in your future endeavours!

 

[mvrcuriee]

I always like to think that ATAR is just one of many pathways! At the end of the day, that number won’t matter after 18th December, don’t start worrying now! It’s hard to imagine at the start but as long as you get into your desired course, does it really matter the number you got initially?

media and communications. There are many pathways one can take

 

[radioheadfan42]

As long as its enough to get into the course you want. Throughout my entire first year of uni, atar hasn't been brought up once - literally nobody will care after the 19th of December, its more of an "oh cool" moment than a "OMG MY LIFE IS CHANGING FOREVER" deal

However, do your absolute best to aim for the ATAR you need to get into your desired course. No one cares whether you score 99.95 or 85 as long as you meet the entry requirement. However, missing out by a small margin can leave you stuck in an undesired course, trying to transfer later. Make it easier by earning bonus points or hitting the required ATAR from the start, rather than relying on alternative pathways, which often waste time and money.

my desired course has an atar of 75 as guaranteed entry…i have also applied for SRS

im not sure how achievable 75 is, or what that equates to…we havent gotten our reports or ranks overall back, but for a few subjects i am doing particularly bad. Others, particularly well!

My best is visual arts…i am ranked 1. I am an artist already

English extension i am not sure, i didnt (for personal reasons) hand in my assessment…kind of. I did, and my teacher still gave me feedback! But it just wasnt on time. Silly me. And i did not finish the questions in the trials. I panicked a little. Though in my term 1 assesment i absolutely SMASHED IT! I got an A! I think i was rank 1 or 2…But im not sure if term 1 counts or not towards atar.

For advanced, i did very well in all my assesments…A-B range, but my trials were terrible. Once again, because i didnt finish the questions.

extension history dont even want to talk about…i love the subject, but im so terrible at its a bit cursed.

for modern, im about average. I think i got about a 60/100, which was around the average mark. Not sure what my rank is!

for chemistry, i had a mind blank mid trials. But my other internals were quite nice! For my depth study i got a 90% and was top mark…very cool! Im proud of myself there! Im not sure to what extent that would help my case though, given my trials were scary bad.

So its bad, but it could be worse! I understand all my subjects so its not the content im too worried about…aside from a few bits of chemistry. Its mostly that i think i havent practiced things like timed responses, practice questions, past papers, and tried to find formulas/formats to use…which i am currently doing now

so im not sure how achievable a 75-80 atar is in my position. Im just going to try as hard as i can in externals, ill see how i do

 

[radioheadfan42]

From one neurodivergent to the next, the HSC course is totally not built for us at all TT I relate so much, unfortunately! My mark can flip between 100 and 70 in the span of a couple of months depending on my condition for the exam, marks are never an indicator of how much you care about a course, or how good you are at it. I'm glad you were able to come to terms with everything, and I wish you luck in your future endeavours!

THANK YOU! I wish you luck as well. Neurodiversity is annoying and many days i wish i were different. I wish to come to terms with it!

also very relateable..my marks can go from an A to a C in the matter of a month. Its almost a bit comical how inconsistent my internals are…
English advanced craft of writing and textual conversations marks were great!…but the english advanced trials? An absolute disgrace to the subject of english. All dependent on weather my brain wants to work with me. Ahh.

 

[Ellztrap]

My atar was in the low 60’s
I got early entry to medical radiation science, and pharmacy!

Ended up in nursing tho, and now I’m doing my postgrad.

I’m very happy with where I’m at in life.

If you get a bad atar it’s not the end of the world. There’s still options and pathways to get to where you wanna go.