I will talk from my experience, so feel free to disagree if you want to because I might be a bit subjective.
The questions you should first ask yourself before thinking of anything include the following:
1) Why did you go bad in your tests?
- Lack of motivation to study?
- Struggled with the topics?
- Played games and haven't studied?
- Wasn't interested in the subjects chosen?
- Had no choice but to chose those subjects?
- Personal problems?
- Teacher wasn't helpful?
I haven't covered all the reasons why you might have went bad at school and therefore received a low ATAR. However, if one of the reasons is that you went bad due to playing alot of games instead of studying and therefore underestimated the HSC then you could probably consider repeating the HSC at TAFE as it can be the best option in my opinion. Just remember that you must really know that you can succeed, if you honestly struggled with the course then I wouldn't consider repeating the HSC. Remember that even though people repeat the HSC doesn't mean that they will necessarily do well and get into their desired university course, depending on the University. Another thing is don't think everyone at TAFE is 'dumb'. I will refer you to my experience, I repeated my HSC at TAFE but changed a few subjects compared to to highschool. My highschool is ranked in the early ~40ish in NSW. Remember it totally depends on the reason why you went bad, and after you can decide wisely. If you know you still believe you wont put 100% effort, just do a Certificate 4 or Diploma at TAFE as university might not be suited, but remember its your life so its up to you. From my personal experience is that I went on doing again 11 units. For me specifically, in my HSC after highschool I got the following results, I wont tell you my ATAR though.
Subjects/HSC Mark - Normal courses out of 100 and extension is out of 50
1) English (Adv): 75 (MEMORISE AND MASTER YOUR ESSAYS)
2) Mathematics (Adv): 92 (Natural Ability)
3) Mathematics (extension 1): 44 (Natural Ability)
4) Engineering Studies: 86 (MAKE SURE YOUR NOTES ARE WELL MADE)
5) Biology: 74 (KEEP GOING OVER YOUR NOTES AND MEMORISE THEM)
6) Physics: 90 (Always seem to perform relatively strong)
Preliminary: Business Studies (Dropped)
I am changing a few subjects (not mentioning), my real aim this time is I'm really going to put all my effort, still having about 1hr of sport each week, but not playing computer games this time by the way I don't do facebook. My aim is to get around ~86 - ~89 for English, 95+ for Mathematics, 46-47/50 for Extension 1 Mathematics, 94-96 for Physics, 93+ for Biology etc.
ATAR
Final Messages:
1) Think of the reason why you did relatively poor.
2) If repeating, MAKE SURE YOU STAY MOTIVATED!
3) CUT YOUR SOCIAL LIFE!
If you have any other questions, feel free to message me or post on this thread.
Goodluck and best wishes.