Year 12 students face a nervous few weeks while they wait for their ATAR

ABC NEWS (Australia)

With exams over and schoolies celebrations wrapping up, year 12 students are counting down the days until they get their results. But for many students waiting for their ATAR – or Australian Tertiary Admission Rank – can be a little stressful.

Transcript

00:00I remember back in year 12, waiting for my ATAR was very nerve-wracking. Luckily, I got

00:08100 first in history, so that was fine. But we've just been looking at some research coming

00:15out of the University of Adelaide that was looking at kind of the different emotional

00:19strategies you can employ when you're waiting for big results, like exam results or your

00:24ATAR, and they found the best way to deal with those nerves and your feelings is to

00:30accept them. Accept your feelings, speak about how you're feeling, so don't just say,

00:37ah, I'm nervous. Put a label on that feeling and make it specific. I'm nervous because

00:43I think these results are kind of going to dictate the next part of my life. Accepting

00:49those feelings in the long run is going to make you feel a whole lot better when you

00:54actually get those results. And actually, one of the worst things we can do when we

00:58are waiting for our ATAR is to reappraise our thoughts and kind of think of all the

01:03different scenarios in your head about what you're going to do, depending on what ATAR

01:09you get. And the research found that this was actually a kind of bad approach when you

01:14don't know the results yet. So we actually spoke to a couple of year 11s for this story

01:20about their feelings towards their ATAR going into year 12.

01:24I guess it is one of the most stressful things about year 12, achieving the ATAR that you

01:29want for the career path that you're going on. And yeah, it's been talked about a lot

01:34and I'm starting to worry a little bit.

01:37I'm aiming to study medicine, so it's in the high 90s towards the higher end. So yeah,

01:41I'm basically just trying to get the top grade I can essentially in everything.

01:46I've gone to a few open days and they've always said that if you don't reach the ATAR that

01:52you need, you can always just fall back on a different course, do that for about a year

01:56or so and then you can transfer into the course again. So you just build up the credits to

02:00get into the course and then you can transfer. And so I think there's always a way to get

02:04into the course you want to do.

02:05So for those who didn't get 100, like you, Cale, who haven't got the marks that they

02:09want, what are the other pathways available?

02:13There are lots of different pathways and it's important to note that your ATAR isn't the

02:17be all and end all. Speaking with Professor Jenny Shaw, she's the Vice Chancellor Academic

02:25at the University of Adelaide, she was saying the ATAR is kind of dropping in importance.

02:31So there are lots of different pathways, but also universities look at different things

02:35like interviews or auditions or written tasks to get into different degrees. If you don't

02:43get into the degree that you want, there are foundation courses and different kind of bridging

02:49courses, a bit like summer school, that you can do to bump up your ATAR, your ranking,

02:55so you can get into the course you want. Or as Fraser said in those vox pops there, you

03:00can start a similar course and do some of the credits towards that course and then try

03:05and transfer into the degree you want later down the line. But also have a look around,

03:11have a look at the different rankings for the universities across different degrees

03:16and degrees that you want to get into across the country if you're willing to move into

03:20state. They all change and they all vary around the country. So there's lots of different

03:24ways. Your ATAR isn't the be all and end all and I didn't get 100, I was lying to you.

03:30You can only get 99.95, that's the top rank, I should clear that up. But there's lots of

03:36different ways.

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