Can you really "waste" your ATAR?

If you are making the transition from high school to university, Uni Notes can help!

A common misapprehension about leaving school and going to uni is the idea that you have to “spend” your ATAR points; otherwise you’re “wasting” them. For some reason, people who achieve an ATAR that is far greater than what they need for their desired course are seen as “wasting” their score or “wasting” their potential.

To clear this up, we interviewed three people from a variety of different courses who achieved an ATAR far above what was required for their first preference, and asked them about their experiences.

Nick – ATAR: 99.40
Course: Bachelor of Science at The University of Melbourne, 2014 (92.00)

You know how some people are scarily good at predicting their own results? Have you ever met someone who had an amazingly accurate idea of their own capabilities? Well, Nick isn’t one of them.

“I thought I was on track to barely crack 90.00; maybe a little bit over if I was lucky.”

Next thing he knew, he’d come close to topping the state, and was 0.5 points away from a Chancellor’s Scholarship. So why was his estimation so off?

“I just focussed on the work and assumed I was just another slightly above average student. Plus, I was at a school full of smart people and hung around with a bunch of nerds, so I never felt like I was exceptional.”

Ultimately, Nick didn’t believe he’d was wasting his efforts in Year 12, despite over-shooting by more than 7 points because he didn’t think he exerted himself that much. By concentrating on the content he had to learn and prioritising his understanding instead of obsessing over results, he was able to achieve a higher score than he ever thought possible.

“I did have this moment of ‘oh… maybe I should be doing Biomed or something,’ but I realised Science was a better fit for me. I really didn’t want to end up in a job I didn’t care about just because it was the ‘best’ one, numerically speaking.”

Of course, the idea of what’s ‘best’ is highly subjective, and the ATAR calculation is based on the popularity of courses, not their difficulty or efficacy. And Nick’s wholehearted advice is that what’s most desirable for some shouldn’t sway your own decision making, lest you end up wasting time on something less than ideal.

“Years from now, when you’re asked why you chose your profession, do you want to say ‘well… cause I could?’ Or do you want to say ‘because this is where my passion is, and this is what matters to me?’ “

Lachlan – ATAR: 97.65
Course: Bachelor of Computer Science at RMIT, 2012 (82.15)

Lachlan was in a very similar position to Nick in that he had well and truly surpassed his course requirements, but he remembers his decision being much more fraught.

“My parents were furious. I’d gotten an ATAR that could’ve gotten me into so many other courses, and yet I was choosing to do ‘computer stuff,’ as they put it. My dad didn’t talk to me for a couple of days.”

It seemed the merits of Computer Science (and the fact that IT is one of the most lucrative and fastest growing industries) was lost on his family and friends. Even his teachers took a pretty simplistic view of his situation.

“After results came out and before we had to finalise preferences, my school let us come in to chat to the careers team about our options… when I told them my ATAR, they were like ‘oh great! So will you be doing Law or Biomed?’ I tried to keep a straight face and say ‘nah, I’m keen on Computer Science at RMIT actually,’ and I swear, her disappointed ‘…oh’ haunted me for weeks… I kept feeling like I was letting myself down somehow.”

After a week of this pressure, Lachlan was nearly ready to bump some of his other preferences up the list, but he kept thinking that he’d regret not choosing the kind of course he’d been aspiring to since he was twelve.

“During the summer holidays when I was a kid, I used to sneak a screwdriver into our study so I could open up my parents’ computer and look at the motherboard. I knew better than to mess with the wires and drives, but I kept doing it because I thought if I stared long enough, I’d be able to work out what everything did.”

For Lachlan, choosing any other course would’ve been wasting his time, and he figured he’d rather “waste” those bonus 15 ATAR points than spend years of his life going down a path that he was barely interested in. Most of his friends were going on to study Science and Engineering, and the ones doing degrees in IT or something similar had scores that were much closer to the clearly-in ATAR.

Now that he’s finished his studies and is out in the workforce, does he regret his decision?

“Not even slightly. And even my parents came around eventually once they saw how committed I was. In hindsight, yeah, I probably could’ve relaxed a little more in Year 12 and stressed less about my performance. But I learned a lot. I learned what I was capable of… and that was such an ego-boost.”

Ted – ATAR: 89.90
Course: Architecture at RMIT, 2012 (N/A)

Uniquely among our interviewees, Ted didn’t even need an ATAR for his course. Architecture at RMIT – like most of their other visual arts and design degrees – just requires a pass in English. The rest of your application hinges on a portfolio of your work, and occasionally on interviews, meaning that Ted’s Year 12 was mostly geared towards the practical component of his Studio Arts and Visual Communication and Design (VCD) subjects.

“[Those subjects] ate up at least ten hours a week between school work and homework… I wanted those folios, especially my VCD one, to sum up everything I could do and everything I wanted to be able to do… which took a while.”

And yet, Ted ended up with one of the highest ATARs at his school, coupled with decent study scores in Physics and Methods despite the fact that none of it made a difference to his tertiary application. Why did he bother?

“Well, it kind of came down to me needing a break. I mean, I could’ve ditched my other commitments and just gone all out on my VCD stuff, but I think I would’ve legitimately lost my mind by, like, June.”

It’s tempting to think of subjects as ‘distractions’ sometimes, especially if you’ve got some that you know aren’t preparing you for what you’ll study in the future, but sometimes these are necessary distractions to balance out your school life.

On reflection, Ted remembers people being surprised he scored so highly, but there was never any doubt that Architecture was where his future lay.

“If my friend got a 99 ATAR and jumped off a bridge, would I do the same? No. That’d be dumb. I’d still go to uni and study architecture to learn how to build safer bridges, because that’s what I want to do with my life.”

Ted is also the self-proclaimed pioneer of Architecture-based humour, but luckily for him, he’s better and designing bridges than designing jokes about them.

So is “wasting” an ATAR possible?

In short, your ATAR’s not a gift card – it’s not a choice between spending it or losing it. Your preferences are exactly that – preferences. So when it comes time to lodge your application with VTAC, don’t rank courses by their ATARs, or you’ll end up wasting stuff that’s far more important than an ATAR: your time, your energy, and your future.

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