school and atar help (1 Viewer)

[beabadoobebee]

i currently go to a top 5 school and was wondering if it would be worth it to move to a worse, top 50 school. i want to do med so i want to get a good atar and having to travel to school cuts down on the amount of time id have to study. its also hard especially with morning classes which in year 12 ill have to attend for 4unit maths. im not sure what to do as ive heard that going to a highly ranked school scales your atar upwards but some people are also saying this isnt true?? and i want to get as high as possible but id be saving around 3 hours in total everyday so id have more time to study. would this extra time outweigh the difference in the teaching and resources etc?

 

[jimmysmith560]

The school that you attend has no direct effect on your ATAR. A higher school rank (such as your current school) indicates that the school has a more academically capable cohort than a lower-ranked school, such as the school that you are thinking of enrolling at. Attending a lower-ranked school simply means that you would need to rank higher in your school-based assessment tasks/exams to perform at a high standard, whereas you may not need to rank as high at a higher ranked school to be performing at that same standard. As such, a student’s rank within their cohort can be interpreted differently based on the school that they attend. For example, being ranked 20th out of 100 students in a particular subject at your current school likely translates to more favourable performance than being ranked 20th out of 100 students in the same subject at a lower-ranked school. Simply put, you can achieve a high ATAR at any school, as long as you are committed to your studies.

On the other hand, a significant aspect of changing schools is the additional study time that you would gain instead of having to travel for extended periods of time. Assuming that this would not affect your ability to enroll at the other school, I would suggest starting year 11 at your current school to see whether you can effectively manage your studies and performance. If there are no issues, perhaps you should stay at your current school. Otherwise, you may wish to consider the other school.

I hope this helps!

 

[beabadoobebee]

The school that you attend has no direct effect on your ATAR. A higher school rank (such as your current school) indicates that the school has a more academically capable cohort than a lower-ranked school, such as the school that you are thinking of enrolling at. Attending a lower-ranked school simply means that you would need to rank higher in your school-based assessment tasks/exams to perform at a high standard, whereas you may not need to rank as high at a higher ranked school to be performing at that same standard. As such, a student’s rank within their cohort can be interpreted differently based on the school that they attend. For example, being ranked 20th out of 100 students in a particular subject at your current school likely translates to more favourable performance than being ranked 20th out of 100 students in the same subject at a lower-ranked school. Simply put, you can achieve a high ATAR at any school, as long as you are committed to your studies.

On the other hand, a significant aspect of changing schools is the additional study time that you would gain instead of having to travel for extended periods of time. Assuming that this would not affect your ability to enroll at the other school, I would suggest starting year 11 at your current school to see whether you can effectively manage your studies and performance. If there are no issues, perhaps you should stay at your current school. Otherwise, you may wish to consider the other school.

I hope this helps!

thank you so much, that was really helpful but i just had a few more questions. first of all, in regards to the last part, the lower school i may attend is also a selective school so i have to enrol at the start of the year and cannot move back so if i want to move i have to commit to it.

for the part about the scaling and the class ranks, my teachers at my school have mentioned that with scaling usually the people who rank first and second etc also perform the same in the exams, first rank gets the highest mark and second rank gets the second highest and so on. so essentially would the rank difference in school matter since my ability in the subject wouldnt change? also when i have asked my peers about whether or not i should move, all of them seem to say that going to a lower school scales down ur atar so what are they referring to when they say this?

i also tried to calculate the amount of time i would have available to study each day if i stayed at my school vs going to another school. if i allowed myself one hour for dinner as well as 8 hours for sleep and other than those times to eat and sleep, at my current school i would have 5 hours available while at the other school i would have 7 and a half hours available. although this is a significant amount of time i was wondering if it would be worth it to move considering the resources and teaching at school, environment etc. would be worse but im struggling to judge it myself. which one do you think would be better overall?

 

[liamkk112]

thank you so much, that was really helpful but i just had a few more questions. first of all, in regards to the last part, the lower school i may attend is also a selective school so i have to enrol at the start of the year and cannot move back so if i want to move i have to commit to it.

for the part about the scaling and the class ranks, my teachers at my school have mentioned that with scaling usually the people who rank first and second etc also perform the same in the exams, first rank gets the highest mark and second rank gets the second highest and so on. so essentially would the rank difference in school matter since my ability in the subject wouldnt change? also when i have asked my peers about whether or not i should move, all of them seem to say that going to a lower school scales down ur atar so what are they referring to when they say this?

i also tried to calculate the amount of time i would have available to study each day if i stayed at my school vs going to another school. if i allowed myself one hour for dinner as well as 8 hours for sleep and other than those times to eat and sleep, at my current school i would have 5 hours available while at the other school i would have 7 and a half hours available. although this is a significant amount of time i was wondering if it would be worth it to move considering the resources and teaching at school, environment etc. would be worse but im struggling to judge it myself. which one do you think would be better overall?

if you're moving from a top 5 to a top 50 school your cohort will be relatively similar in terms of their hsc marks. when people say that lower school scales down your atar, this is not really true - what they're referring to is the cohort. how hsc marks are calculated involve the marks of your peers in some aspect, for example if you're ranked 5th within your school for a subject, then the "internal" mark you get will be approximately equal to the person from your school who scored the 5th highest mark in the external hsc exam (subject to mean, gap between marks etc but you get the point) - this is what people mean when they say scaling, although this process is called alignment.

now if you move from a top 5 selective school to a top 300 school of course there will generally be a weaker cohort, so if you're lower ranked then you will feel an effect on your internal mark. however moving to a top 50 selective school, your cohort will likely also be academically strong so you wouldn't really feel a difference, hence it would be pretty much just up to your performance in the hsc rather than your peers and the school wouldnt have much of an effect on your marks (directly from "scaling" as your peers say). so i'd say pick the school based on the other factors that matter as you said - consider the school environment, it might be tough moving in year 11 (i did this), study hours, etc. if you think that those extra hours of sleep and study time are important then 100% go for it, especially if you're doing morning classes it's gonna be difficult to wake up at 5:30 or wtv and then come home after 9 hours of school and study. it's really up to you though, neither would be a bad choice

 

[jonolad69]

if you're moving from a top 5 to a top 50 school your cohort will be relatively similar in terms of their hsc marks.

Not true at all.

 

[liamkk112]

Not true at all.

don't get me wrong it will be worse but not to the point where you will be held back from achieving at all. you'll still be at a really good school

 

[beabadoobebee]

don't get me wrong it will be worse but not to the point where you will be held back from achieving at all. you'll still be at a really good school

i understand that both cohorts will get relatively high results but since i am set on medicine, i really want to get the highest atar i can and for me even a single atar point would be a significant difference. but as for that, what confuses me is scaling and i don’t really understand how scaling works. would my cohort impact me as if i want to get in the 99s, wouldn’t i have to be topping my classes and receiving the top marks in hsc exams anyways? so what i was thinking is that essentially if im getting the top mark in my school ranking i should be getting the highest in the exam as well so scaling wouldnt affect me??

about the environment, i think the social aspects wouldn’t affect me as i have a close friend in the school i would move to if i did and im not too concerned about that. what i meant was, as my school is top 5 in the state, students are held to very high standard (band 6s considered a minimum standard) and are well prepared for hsc while all my friends in the school i intend to move to seem to have way more chill teachers and a portion of the cohort doesn’t care about atar and cause of that i was just worried that teachers might not teach as well and the resources (papers written by the school) may be easier and less detailed and not prepare me as well as students from other schools.

i’ve also tried studying on the train before and i cant see it being efficient at all as sometimes i cant even get a seat and its usually to uncomfortable to focus so the most i usually do is read over some notes

 

[beabadoobebee]

if you're moving from a top 5 to a top 50 school your cohort will be relatively similar in terms of their hsc marks. when people say that lower school scales down your atar, this is not really true - what they're referring to is the cohort. how hsc marks are calculated involve the marks of your peers in some aspect, for example if you're ranked 5th within your school for a subject, then the "internal" mark you get will be approximately equal to the person from your school who scored the 5th highest mark in the external hsc exam (subject to mean, gap between marks etc but you get the point) - this is what people mean when they say scaling, although this process is called alignment.

now if you move from a top 5 selective school to a top 300 school of course there will generally be a weaker cohort, so if you're lower ranked then you will feel an effect on your internal mark. however moving to a top 50 selective school, your cohort will likely also be academically strong so you wouldn't really feel a difference, hence it would be pretty much just up to your performance in the hsc rather than your peers and the school wouldnt have much of an effect on your marks (directly from "scaling" as your peers say). so i'd say pick the school based on the other factors that matter as you said - consider the school environment, it might be tough moving in year 11 (i did this), study hours, etc. if you think that those extra hours of sleep and study time are important then 100% go for it, especially if you're doing morning classes it's gonna be difficult to wake up at 5:30 or wtv and then come home after 9 hours of school and study. it's really up to you though, neither would be a bad choice

this is what my main concern was as i feel like if i stayed in my school, studying sufficiently for each subject and going to tutoring and attending morning class for 4unit might be unsustainable but at the same time my other worry is the resources in the other school wouldn’t be as challenging and well preparing but i was thinking that dr du would help with that since i was planning to continue dr du anyways.

 

[liamkk112]

i understand that both cohorts will get relatively high results but since i am set on medicine, i really want to get the highest atar i can and for me even a single atar point would be a significant difference. but as for that, what confuses me is scaling and i don’t really understand how scaling works. would my cohort impact me as if i want to get in the 99s, wouldn’t i have to be topping my classes and receiving the top marks in hsc exams anyways? so what i was thinking is that essentially if im getting the top mark in my school ranking i should be getting the highest in the exam as well so scaling wouldnt affect me??

about the environment, i think the social aspects wouldn’t affect me as i have a close friend in the school i would move to if i did and im not too concerned about that. what i meant was, as my school is top 5 in the state, students are held to very high standard (band 6s considered a minimum standard) and are well prepared for hsc while all my friends in the school i intend to move to seem to have way more chill teachers and a portion of the cohort doesn’t care about atar and cause of that i was just worried that teachers might not teach as well and the resources (papers written by the school) may be easier and less detailed and not prepare me as well as students from other schools.

i’ve also tried studying on the train before and i cant see it being efficient at all as sometimes i cant even get a seat and its usually to uncomfortable to focus so the most i usually do is read over some notes

yeah the thing is that if you're gonna rank 1 all of your classes, your cohort doesn't really matter and the scaling wouldn't affect u then. eg i went to a rank ~200 school, but because i ranked first in all my subjects and got the top hsc mark in everything but english my cohort had minimal effect on my atar. it's just there for a backup, i only got 77 hsc english coz i kinda bombed the exam but because someone in my cohort got 95+ or smth external, and i was rank 1, i soaked up that score for half of my overall mark which meant i got a band 5 overall.

so yeah, i was just pointing out that if you're gunning for the top and end up somehow screwing up one of ur hsc exams a bit a good cohort can help out - but a rank 50 cohort is gonna be a pretty good backup still, chances are there'll be at least 10+ people in each subject who will be aiming for a band 6 and that's 10 ranks plenty of backup. if you can't study on the train and you think you'll need the extra time then i'd just take the extra time tbh, going to a high ranked school doesn't make up for having less efficient study time

this is what my main concern was as i feel like if i stayed in my school, studying sufficiently for each subject and going to tutoring and attending morning class for 4unit might be unsustainable but at the same time my other worry is the resources in the other school wouldn’t be as challenging and well preparing but i was thinking that dr du would help with that since i was planning to continue dr du anyways.

you don't necessarily need difficult resources from your school or tutoring, i didn't go to any tutoring but i got a band 6 in ext2 mainly just from doing a lot of past papers which are freely available for all - although my school did have moderately challenging 4u papers internally. if you're going to dr du you'll be getting plenty of challenge and resources anyway, and if morning class for 4u is more sustainable at the rank 50 school it could be worth it for your sleep schedule and study time