Straight off the bat, this isn’t going to be a “don’t worry – you should be happy with whatever ATAR you received so long as you tried your hardest!” sort of post. There are plenty of those around already. Don’t get me wrong: irrespective of results, finishing Year 12 is a huge achievement. But ultimately, you’ve been working toward this day for more than a decade, so if you’re feeling upset right now, no number of platitudes will entirely destroy that emotion. Importantly, though, it doesn’t need to be destroyed.

 

Simply, it’s okay to feel disappointed.

And equally, it’s okay to be ecstatic. It’s okay to be nonplussed. It’s okay to be apathetic, relieved, upset, frustrated, angry, delighted, nervous, tired, happy, sad. Whatever you’re feeling, those emotions are absolutely and entirely valid. Importantly, this holds true irrespective of what you actually scored, or what you were aiming for. If you were aiming for an 85.00 but got a 75.00, it’s okay to feel disappointed. If you were aiming for a 99.95 but got a 99.00, it’s okay to feel disappointed. It doesn’t matter what other people achieved, or what they were aiming for – ultimately, this is your score, and these are your emotions.

It can be frustrating if people try to console you with things like, “it’s just a number – it doesn’t define you!” or “don’t worry – that’s still a great score!” Whilst it’s perfectly true that your ATAR doesn’t define you, it’s become so clichéd that the expression is almost meaningless. Good intentions like this are lovely, but trust me: consolation like this won’t just take away the disappointment.

So to make this very clear, it’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling right now. Now that we have that sorted, let’s move on to some stuff that might actually help you!

(As an aside, try not to get too caught up in social media. If you think about it, people are a lot more likely to post their scores if they’re happy with them. Naturally, then, what you see on Facebook or Instagram or whatever else isn’t going to be reflective of the broader student population.)

 

Moving forward, it’s not your ATAR that’s important.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying your ATAR isn’t important at all. Obviously, it plays a role in providing access to certain courses and so on. But moving forward, the relevance of your ATAR is, honestly, pretty limited – so long as you let it be.

Sure, it might have an impact on what or where you study next year, but the truth is, transferring from course to course is very likely much easier than you think. Often, such transfers are more dependent on uni marks than high school marks – in that sense, it’s a fresh slate.

How about employment? Do only people with high ATARs get really great jobs? If nothing else, this obviously isn’t the case based purely on supply and demand. But more than that, as a general rule, employers don’t really care about your high school grades. They might be interested in your uni grades to a degree, or what you’re studying, but they’ll be most interested in how ready you are for the workforce in that particular field. Does being job-ready depend on your ATAR? No. Absolutely not.

Will people not like you because of your ATAR? No, again – that would be absurd. In four years at uni, I had literally zero discussions about my ATAR. I don’t know what anybody else in my course got, nor was I particularly interested in finding out. It’s just not a thing at uni, and it doesn’t come up in conversation – people don’t care.

So of course the ATAR matters to a degree. It’s one factor that can open a lot of doors for what you might be studying in 2018. But beyond that? Well, it’s only really relevant if you let it be.

 

You can still get to where you want to be. Seriously.

If you take just one thing out of this article, let it be this: don’t let your ATAR change your dreams.

Literally thousands of Year 12 students before you have been disappointed with their results, and very many of those would have ended up in their dream degree, anyway. The truth is – and I’m sure you’ve heard this before – there are many different ways to get into a degree. Direct from Year 12 is just one of those.

One option you have is studying a different degree from the same university. For example, if you wanted to study a Bachelor of Laws, but didn’t quite make the ATAR cut-off, you might enrol in a Bachelor of Arts from the same uni. With good enough grades in your first year of Arts, you’ll be able to transfer into Law – and hey presto, dream course! For some degrees, of course, this type of transfer may be more difficult, but in general, internal transfers (moving between degrees at the same institution) are pretty straightforward.

Another option is to take advantage of different pathways to your dream degree, such as an Advanced Diploma or similar. Numerous unis offer these, and you might even be able to get them credited as part of your eventual Bachelor’s degree! If you don’t really want to start studying an unrelated degree to get to where you want to be, this might be a great option for you. In sum, your options might be something like (and there’s honestly no right answer here):

  1. Enrol in your desired degree, but at a different university.

  2. Enrol in an unrelated Bachelor’s degree with the hope of transferring internally.

  3. Or, alternatively, enrol in a relevant pathway course (such as the Advanced Diploma) to be studying content relevant to your field from day one. RMIT University is particularly strong in this field.

 

Making the most educated decisions from now.

We’ve established that there are many options available to you, which you probably already knew from the 300,000 people this year that have told you that there are many options available to you. Actually making the decision, of course, might be a little more difficult. So – where to begin?

If you want to throw around ideas with current university and VCE students, there’s a really big contingent on the ATAR Notes Forums. You might like to start in the general university discussion board. If you have any questions at all, flick them up on the forums, and somebody will respond. I did this myself at the end of Year 12 (I think I titled the thread “Help me construct my life” haha), and the responses legitimately helped me choose my degree. We’re not professionals, of course, but we do our best to give helpful advice. 😉

Otherwise, some universities offer really great services during this period. For example, RMIT has a whole hub with different types of support, including a student hotline (03 9925 2260), which you can call for advice on every day from now until the end of the Change of Preference period (20 December). RMIT will be available to give the accurate sort of advice you’ll be looking for during this period and, again, I really can’t emphasise how useful just talking to a university can be.

You can also visit unis in person! Asking questions during this time is really important to make sure you put yourself in the best possible position.

All the very best with your decisions and digesting your results. Remember: we’re always here if you need us!

UNI NOTES: UNLEASH YOUR UNIVERSITY SUCCESS!