Year 12 subject selections - Is only 4 VCE subjects smart

[mizzrene]

Hi,
I am currently in year 11 and my subjects look like this:
English 1/2
Religion and society 3/4
Biology 3/4
Methods 1/2
Chemistry 1/2
Physics 1/2
Health 1/2

Because I am doing two 3/4 subjects this year, I can do 4 VCE subjects next year rather than 5 (plus unit 2 RE because I go to a catholic high school ). I recently put in my subject preferences and they went like this:
English 3/4
RE 2
Chemistry 3/4
Further Math 3/4
Methods 3/4
Health 3/4

I put in 5 VCE subjects for my preferences because I am not sure whether 4 VCE subjects is the best way to go about getting a high atar (because I'm aiming for something in science and the atars for that aren't too friendly, especially for Melbourne and Monash). I was wondering if anyone did only 4 subjects in VCE and would recommend doing the lesser amount? How well did you use all of your extra study time? If you did 5 VCE subjects, would you have preferred to do 4? What subjects did you do in year 12 and what were your scores like for them?

Sorry for the giant amount of questions, I have no clue about what's coming for me in Year 12.
Thanks!

[sweetcheeks]

Coming from someone doing 5 VCE subjects in year 12; I wish I could have only done 4 subjects. It hits you when you have the last 2 weeks of term and your final assessments are all coming up. I'm pretty bad at managing and balancing my work though.

How well are you doing in your current 3/4 subjects? How well does your school do at VCE?

Monash and Melbourne require an Atar of 85 this year for basic science that is quite attainable and I doubt it will change much next year.

If you do 4 3/4 subjects next year you will have 6 in total. Your first 4 (one has to be English) are your main and the 5th and 6th make up 10% of your Atar.