Will having 10 units affect my ATAR? (1 Viewer)

[elena99]

Hey,
So currently I have 12 units, and I was wondering and well stressing out about if I drop another subject and go down to 10 units, will that affect my ATAR in some way?
I do advanced English, Legal Studies, CAFS, PDHPE, general mathematics and Saturday school for languages. I want to drop math since it's my weakest subject, I am ranked 6th out of 38 students, but for the others I am ranked 1st. So, I need an advice whether I should drop math or not, and if I do, will it affect my ATAR?!
Please, please give me your opinion, because it will help me a lot.
Thank you

 

[701]

Having 10 units will not affect your ATAR. Many people have 10+ units because they are either unsure of which subject will count towards their ATAR or want a 'safety net' in case they completely bomb out in a subject they thought would count. Consider how much time you spend on General Mathematics and if that affects the time/effort you could be putting into your other subjects.

 

[Son of Thatcher]

Plenty of people have done extremely well with 12 units, it's simply a matter of managing your time well. In a strict technical sense dropping down to 10 units won't affect your ATAR at all since you intend to drop your weakest subject, Maths. This means had you kept it and it continued to be your worst subject, then it wouldn't have counted since BOSTES takes your best 10 units.

In practice however, there are numerous other things to consider:

~ Whether you want a 2 unit subject as a backup in case you really bomb a course?

~ Whether you can cope with the extra workload/stress of another 2 unit subject?

~ Whether you enjoy Maths irrespective of your results in the subject?

Normally I'd suggest not to worry about scaling and simply choose things purely on the basis of the level of your enjoyment. In this case however, most of those subjects other than Advanced English aren't great scaling courses. On that basis, I'd recommend keeping Maths and really trying to boost your mark in the subject. Ultimately, your goal would be for the course to count towards your ATAR in place of a subject, let's say CAFS, which unfortunately seems to be a very poor scaler. Of course, the best thing would be just to smash your exams all-round and render all this talk immaterial.

Sorry if this seems forward, but I think an honest answer will be more helpful to you here. Happy hunting!

 

[Jakulore]

No it will not affect your ATAR if you have 10 units seeing as only 10 units are counted regardless. It could be beneficial to keep the extra two units as a back up, but if you believe you will do much worse in General Maths than in your other subjects then you may as well drop it (if you want to) so that you have extra time to put into your other 10 units.

Backups are nice, but aren't always necessary. For example, whilst I dropped 2u Maths and History Extension, I kept English Extension as a backup unit (for Legal Studies), and despite getting only one mark less in it in Biology and English Advanced, and 2 marks less than it in the average scaling Legal Studies and the notoriously 'low scaling' Food Technology, English Extension ended up not being counted towards my ATAR anyway, despite being considered a higher scaling subject.

 

[pikachu975]

Hey,
So currently I have 12 units, and I was wondering and well stressing out about if I drop another subject and go down to 10 units, will that affect my ATAR in some way?
I do advanced English, Legal Studies, CAFS, PDHPE, general mathematics and Saturday school for languages. I want to drop math since it's my weakest subject, I am ranked 6th out of 38 students, but for the others I am ranked 1st. So, I need an advice whether I should drop math or not, and if I do, will it affect my ATAR?!
Please, please give me your opinion, because it will help me a lot.
Thank you

As long as you do well in your other 10 units it's okay. I dropped SDD and got study periods for it and combined with my SOR study periods, I'd say it's definitely worth it to get study periods as it allowed me to do a lot of homework during school during last term and then study at home or have more free time. If you feel worried that you might not do well in a subject just keep 12 units as a backup.

 

[SuperAltastic]

Having 10 units will not affect your atar, however you should consider what Son of Thatcher said as that can play a role in your decision. I only had 10 units and did fine but like many others I did one unit of my HSC in year 11 so having the extra study period did help.