HSC Stress (2 Viewers)

[tyguy]

Hey everyone,

Now to everybody out there im going into year 11 next year and I honestly got no idea why I'm already stressing about this, but i am curious to know how dependent your university course is on your ATAR.

Now God willing I would like to study medicine at just about any university I can get into. I want to eventually study psychiatry but I am for some reason already stressing about the HSC. How do you handle all that pressure in one exam, knowing that if you bomb it your future is deeply affected?

Do you have to consistently study 6+ hours a day after school to achieve an extremely high ATAR, or are there people out there who have achieved greatly with casual study? I am just looking for peoples experiences and advice. Does your lifestyle have to be sacrificed to achieve, can you go out and spend time with friends and family throughout the year or do you solely dedicate the year to studying?

I know I got a while until i sit the HSC but i cant imagine the pressure of studying the whole year and going into the exam. To add on that, how much does your year 11 marks count towards your ATAR. If anybody could answer any of my questions and share their experiences that would be greatly appreciated

 

[Geniusly]

Ok, as someone who just finished the HSC this year, here's my advice.

How do you handle all that pressure in one exam, knowing that if you bomb it your future is deeply affected?

First off, Yr 11 exams don't impact your ATAR at all. Sure, they can be used for early entry, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a single uni that offers early entry for medicine so it won't really matter for you. Also, even though all of your Yr 12 exams will count, they matter less than you think. I'm not saying to not study, but the impact of getting 5% or 10% less than what you expect in one exam will matter a lot less in the grand scheme of things. If you consistently study and learn from your mistakes, you will have many successes.

Do you have to consistently study 6+ hours a day after school to achieve an extremely high ATAR, or are there people out there who have achieved greatly with casual study? I am just looking for peoples experiences and advice.

It really depends how high of an ATAR you are aiming for and how naturally talented you are. For me, I wasn't the most naturally talented student, so I had to study 6hrs a day from about start of January till HSC in order to get some decent results. For context of my results, I got first internally in 4U, 3U and chem, Second in Phys and 11th in EngAdv. That being said, 6hrs a day is a lot and you must build up towards this. I started in Yr 9 doing 3hrs a day and just added an hr a day each year. It's also important that you aren't just mindlessly doing 6hrs a day of work. It's far more beneficial to do 2hrs of focussed work where you are actively learning from past mistakes and improving your exam technique, as oppossed to doing 6hrs of whatever you feel like and procrastinating.

Also, it really depends on what ATAR you actually want. My goal was 99.95 at the start of the year (This was kinda a joke but also like to see how far I could go). If you want USYD medicine then 99.95 is what you need and the 6hrs a day is kinda manditory, unless you are some God blessed freak of nature. However, some of the smaller medical programs such as WSU rely less on ATAR and more on interview and UCAT performance. Look at what you want to do and adjust accordingly.

Does your lifestyle have to be sacrificed to achieve, can you go out and spend time with friends and family throughout the year or do you solely dedicate the year to studying?

From personal experience, you have three options to focus on in Year 11 and Year 12. School work, Social life and Extracurriculas. I think that you can realistically focus on 2 out of three, and one will inevitably be lacking. I'm sure there's a way to balance all three, but if your goal is to get into medicine I think some sacrifices will have to be made. Me personally, I was able to balance getting high marks and running at a national level, but my social life was almost non existant during Yr 12. I would be either at school, doing study or training and didn't really get time to be with others. It sounds kinda sad, but that's what I've found it takes to be successful. I'm sure more talented people than I am were able to study 2hrs a day and party on weekends, but those people are very rare to find.

To add on that, how much does your year 11 marks count towards your ATAR.

As I mentioned before, not at all. Only sets you up for some early entry programs and gives you a little confidence boost going into Yr 12.

 

[tyguy]

Thanks for the reply and I totally get you.

To be honest, throughout my high school life so far I have never found myself to study a lot, maybe maximum 3 hrs a day in Year 10, and I've got seemingly high results. I would like to say I'm naturally smart, and I've never found myself needing to be tutored. That being said I am 100% going to have to get tutored in my senior years, but I always see people saying you can achieve great results in the hsc without having to sacrifice your social life, so I was wanting to know the actual truth to that.

After doing the HSC, how did you find doing both physics and chem on top of 4U math? Was it hard to balance? Did you genuinely enjoy the content, pick them for scaling or a bit of both? Your HSC lineup is a definite possibility for me and I'm curious as to how your studies went having to focus on two sciences.

When setting out my atar goal, should i aim high (as in 99.95 for med at usyd) or more realistic and achievable (such as a 95-97, that could potentially put me in med at wsu)? If i was to be aiming for a 97 atar, would i need constant 6 hr study sessions, or could i find myself studying 2-4hrs a day efficiently and still reach my goal?

Hope all goes well with your HSC and you achieve that 99.95 atar!

 

[Constantspy977]

Im going to be completely honest with you, 95 or even 97 is not getting u into med at any uni. You need to aim for 99+ at least but in saying that, if your UCAT is insanely good like 96+ percentile you can get away with 95 ATAR maybe but idek anyone whos gotten above 92. Honestly, in your situation, I would study for the UCAT right now. In year 11, your grades only matter if you want an early offer, and there aren't any early offers for med. I got 88th percentile in UCAT which was like 4 months of study and im prolly getting no offers with that. If I could do year 11 again I would prep for UCAT as much as possible.

 

[f7eeting]

Hey everyone,

Now to everybody out there im going into year 11 next year and I honestly got no idea why I'm already stressing about this, but i am curious to know how dependent your university course is on your ATAR.

Now God willing I would like to study medicine at just about any university I can get into. I want to eventually study psychiatry but I am for some reason already stressing about the HSC. How do you handle all that pressure in one exam, knowing that if you bomb it your future is deeply affected?

Do you have to consistently study 6+ hours a day after school to achieve an extremely high ATAR, or are there people out there who have achieved greatly with casual study? I am just looking for peoples experiences and advice. Does your lifestyle have to be sacrificed to achieve, can you go out and spend time with friends and family throughout the year or do you solely dedicate the year to studying?

I know I got a while until i sit the HSC but i cant imagine the pressure of studying the whole year and going into the exam. To add on that, how much does your year 11 marks count towards your ATAR. If anybody could answer any of my questions and share their experiences that would be greatly appreciated

yes, you will need to sacrifice quite a lot of your time to perform well especially if you want to study medicine. but also, i think it is important to consider why you want to do medicine in the first place.
i used to be like you and i wanted to do medicine as well in year 11. but i found out that i don't really enjoy biology and i was definitely more of a math-leaning person, and i really only wanted to pursue med because of the prestige that comes with it.
im sure you've heard it a million times over, but please only pursue medicine if you have a genuine passion for it. don't do it for its prestige or its paycheck. it will only be rewarding if it's what you really really want to do.

kind of adding onto that, what makes doing long, long hours of study bearable is choosing subjects you genuinely enjoy. i can't stress this enough.
i only study so much because i chose subjects that i like doing and studying them doesn't really feel like a chore. you will only be able to endure in the long run if you do what you enjoy.

about specific hours, i do maybe 4 hours of study on weekdays including study periods (which i usually have 1/2 of each day) which really meant i'd only do 2 hours of study after school. thankfully, due to study periods, it doesn't really feel that laborious to study 4 hours each weekday. on the weekend is when i'd get a lot of hours in, minimum 3 and reaching 6 on busier weeks (in retrospect these are kind of low in comparison to what others do but to me it feels like a lot )
but take these numbers with a grain of salt. everybody is different and this is what works for me personally and is what allowed me to get ahead on all of my subjects along with revising content. i also had a LOT of free time as well, and i managed to do my usual goofing off even whilst prioritising study, so don't worry, you don't need to throw away your entire life.

 

[Geniusly]

I can't attest to the fact that you can still have a social life during HSC, but I'm sure if you are efficient enough with your study you still can. I sacrificed my social life to be competitive at sports. If you don't really care about this, then I'm sure you could replace this with having a great social life.

Personally, I found doing 4U, Phys and Chem not too bad. It wasn't easy, but I really enjoyed all of the content which made it heaps easier to study. I think if you really are passionate about a subject it will become easy to study regardless of how hard the subject is. My physics teacher was kinda ass, so I found myself having to study the content myself a lot. This was annoying, but again I enjoyed the subject, so it wasn't too bad. Just something to note though, be prepared to do extra study to find those tips and tricks that your teachers may not have. There's a lot of content that teachers don't have (at least at my school), that you can find online.

I also think that doing two sciences will be fine, especially phys and chem since they link together quite well. As long as you can work efficiently, you will definetly be able to complete both of them. Just make sure you enjoy the subjects, that's the most important thing.

As for your ATAR goal, it really is up to you. If it was me, I'd be aimining for as high as possible to be competitive. I think you need to aim for 98 or 99+ realistically to get into med. You also need to make sure that your UCAT is decent as well. As you go through the year, you'll find out how much work you can do to get the results you want. There's no fixed, 'do x hrs a day and you'll get 99 ATAR', you kinda just have to feel it as you go.

I don't think I'll get the 99.95, I think I'll get 99.55 - 99.75, but it is what it is. I don't need the high ATAR anyway, it was more to see how far I could push myself.

Good luck for your Prelim and HSC studies, you'll smash it.

 

[tyguy]

Okay sounds good.

I guess I have to use Year 11 to find my own study techniques that work best for me. I also however have to study for the UCAT so i have to find out a way to balance my subjects and that, as I'm thinking of trying to sit the UCAT at the beginning of Year 12.

Achieving a 99.55 ATAR is still outstanding, just remember that places you in the top 0.45% of the state! Although, in saying that I'm sure with your studies and efforts you will achieve amazing results, let me know how you go!