Rankings - the secret behind them all

[pi]

Over the last couple of years I've seen threads on ranking appear almost weekly, with users frantically questioning:
- "what if I'm not rank 1?",
- "how do rankings work?",
- "OMG lost one SAC mark and am now rank 2, any chance for a 50?",
- "my school has no summer uniform, how will this effect my ranking?"
- "so when my dad graduated he was rank 3 in his applied maths class and my mum was rank 2 but he got a higher score, so is this still relevant today?",
- "what happens if Richmond wins the Grand Final and this causes VCAA to lower my ranking by 1?",
...and the list of questions goes on and on and (and you guessed it!) on.

So here's what to do about rankings, here's the secret:

DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM. DO YOUR BEST FOR YOURSELF AND WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN SACS AND EXAMS.

Run your own race and don't play a numbers game. Don't worry about where you "might" stand in a cohort of "whatever" strength and how this is all calculated. I say this for a few reasons.
- The more you worry about things that you can't really change (eg. how rankings work?) the more you'll be stressed and the lower you'll perform (in general).
- The more you think about them, the more depressed you could get.
- If you focus on trying your best, you'll actually do better.
- If you focus on rankings you'll likely to become a competitive person that no-one likes.
- I and other mods have to read your thread which has already been answered about 50 times.

Having said that, I'm not advocating y'all living in a fairy land by yourself not caring about what everyone else is doing. You've got to care to make sure you're not doing something wrong or falling behind, but you don't have to worry and compare. It's that line that is the distinction that is important.

There you go, that's the secret. Now do your best and make yourself proud!

edit:
A quote I'd like to share courtesy of user dim_sim:

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.
~Henry Ford

[aaackk]

DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM. DO YOUR BEST FOR YOURSELF AND WORRY ABOUT SACS AND EXAMS.

you missed a vital "don't" there

edit: ok woops my bad i completely misinterpreted that sentence lol.

[YMCA]

you missed a vital "don't" there

Do you even grammar?

[Lasercookie]

you missed a vital "don't" there

But you have to worry about upcoming sacs and exams. Rankings and that kind of stuff are the things you want to de-emphasise.

[pi]

you missed a vital "don't" there

Hmm? :O

You SHOULD care about SACs and exams imo so you can get into whatever course you're going for... How can you try your best if you don't care? :O

edit: exception: VCE physics.

[MJRomeo81]

What pi says is the truth. Ultimately rankings mean F*** all. It's about how YOU perform in the sacs/exams.

Worrying about your ranking is just a method of procrastinating. How bad do you want your dream ATAR? Go and get it!!!

[BubbleWrapMan]

Why isn't this sticked?

[Phy124]

- "what if I'm not rank 1?"

Then you're a terrible student and may as well quit school now.

- "how do rankings work?"

- "OMG lost one SAC mark and am now rank 2, any chance for a 50?"

- "my school has no summer uniform, how will this effect my ranking?"

Negatively. To counteract this I advise going nude.

- "so when my dad graduated he was rank 3 in his applied maths class and my mum was rank 2 but he got a higher score, so is this still relevant today?"

Wow, that's pretty cute. Who cares if this is relevant, still a better love story than twilight.

- "what happens if Richmond wins the Grand Final and this causes VCAA to lower my ranking by 1?"

I want what you're on if you're having any thoughts towards Richmond winning this years Grand Final.

[pi]

^You win the thread

Why isn't this sticked?

Ok

[brenden]

Strong point from Pi. I was very, very caught up in rankings and how it all works and what I'll need to get x score. It's a bad habit that's followed me to uni, even now I'm calculating "what's the minimum I can get on this exam to get an 80 for the unit?" when in the end, if I stopped bein a dickhead and worked hard, maybe I'd end up with a little bit more than just scraping my goals.
I think it's about control, really. I mean, VCE can feel... Just... Horrible, sometimes. Sometimes you can feel really out of control so you start thinking that you'll feel in control if you know everything about the system. And then you feel control so long as you keep rank x. Because if you do that, it'll all be okay.
What people forget, is that the only thing you can control is yourself. Always. And this is where pi's post comes in; worry about your SACs, worry about your exam(s). If you want control over your VCE, fucking take control! Worrying about ranks and moderation and whatever else is counter-productive when you should be working as hard as you can.


Edit: I also think it's (quite slightly) inappropriate  to sticky this. The board is looking messy with stickies at the moment

[TimmyC]

Well richmond is gonna win the grand final so be careful! 

[pi]

Edit: I also think it's (quite slightly) inappropriate  to sticky this. The board is looking messy with stickies at the moment

Yeah, adding fixing that to my to-do list haha

[brenden]

Yeah, adding fixing that to my to-do list haha

What would we do without you?

[Shenz0r]

DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM. DO YOUR BEST FOR YOURSELF AND WORRY ABOUT SACS AND EXAMS.

Run your own race and don't play a numbers game. Don't worry about where you "might" stand in a cohort of "whatever" strength and how this is all calculated. I say this for a few reasons.
- The more you worry about things that you can't really change (eg. how rankings work?) the more you'll be stressed and the lower you'll perform (in general).
- The more you think about them, the more depressed you could get.
- If you focus on trying your best, you'll actually do better.
- If you focus on rankings you'll likely to become a competitive person that no-one likes.
- I and other mods have to read your thread which has already been answered about 50 times.

Having said that, I'm not advocating y'all living in a fairy land by yourself not caring about what everyone else is doing. You've got to care to make sure you're not doing something wrong or falling behind, but you don't have to worry and compare. It's that line that is the distinction that is important.

There you go, that's the secret. Now do your best and make yourself proud!

tl;dr - if you actually study and not worry about small pedantic things, you'll naturally attain a higher rank.

[Stick]

Nice guide.

...and the list of questions goes on and on and (and you guessed it!) on.

Seriously, this has also basically constituted a whole heap of the Further posts and the PMs I receive. Not intending to blow my own trumpet here, but I pretty much made sure I answered nearly all the FAQs in my guide, yet posts seem to repeatedly arise every day. I think this can be addressed if the community as a whole makes a collective effort to redirect users to resources, rather than fuelling the issue and spoon-feeding the answers.