Would've thought the ATAR Aim/Expectations would be higher (not too much maybe just a few points) but obviously would depend on the sample of students taken.
Same, especially since the ATAR Notes community would likely have more high achievers simply due to sample bias?
Or maybe it's just that people are setting expectations based on degree requirements and it's all balancing out (eg. an Arts degree of 80 and a Law degree of 99.95 would balance out to around a 90).
Actually, I've noticed that (particularly in recent years), there's been a massive rise in the number of students coming here just hoping to do averagely (note - average ATAR is ~70 in Victoria [though this does change from year to year], so this is what I mean when I say wanting to do averagely). Students who are hoping to just meet the methods pre-req of a bunch of courses, students who are trying to understand the base material because they're struggling, as opposed to what it has been in the past (and is still portrayed a lot) in which pretty much everyone on here wanted to do med and get them sweep of raw 50s - where coming in with an ATAR of 91 was seen as bad, because everyone else legitimately WAS getting 99.95s (in fact, the mods at the time were a little uneasy by the fact that were so many people on the forums doing incredibly well, then getting bashful about it and making those with still amazing, but comparatively worse, scores feel bad).
Maybe it's not as noticeable to people who haven't disappeared for a few years and come back like I have, but there's definitely been a culture shift and a large amount of people who are coming here with more basic questions and desires than the typical "get 50s, get 99.95, do med" culture that we're used to, and I think these stats capture that idea very well - hence the number being lower than you both expected.