Year 12 Results Release – What Next?

Receiving your year 12 results via text message will likely be one of the more stressful moments in your life. In the lead up it can be hard to know what to expect, and you might feel like there’s a lot of pressure placed on you.

Make sure you have someone on the day with whom you can discuss your results who isn’t also in year 12. It can sometimes be really hard to discuss your results with a friend when they have also just received theirs, and are trying to digest the information themselves. You’ll want someone who will share in your success or empathise if you don’t do as well as you thought. Your parents could be good people to have this chat with, although if they’re putting a lot of pressure on, you might want to find another close adult like a family friend or aunt or uncle you could talk to. Often schools will have careers counsellors working on the day you receive your results, so be sure to ask them anything you need to help you understand the implications of the score you have just received.

If you do as well as you wanted or better than expected

Congratulations! Enjoy the moment and have a quiet celebration with your family. If you’re planning to go to university, consider whether you want to change your preferences at this stage. You might have changed your mind in the last couple of weeks, or you might have done better than expected, and you can add a different course to the top of your list.

Please be sure not to change your preferences just for the sake of ‘changing’. Often doing a course simply because you achieve a certain ATAR may, in fact, lead to disappointment.

If you don’t do as well as you thought

Firstly, ‘Well done’ on all your hard work and on finishing year 12! It’s still a great achievement. If you would like to change your university preferences, you’ll have a chance to do so now. Almost all universities have information sessions or the chance to drop in and speak to an advisor during the change of preference period. Go and talk to someone about your options.

And remember, you DO have options. For example, there are often multiple pathways to help you get to your ideal course. Speaking to staff at a university can help you plan an alternative pathway and allow you to make the right decisions. Or you can take the opportunity to actually do something completely different than what you expected and embrace this as the opportunity to embark on a new phase of your life.

However, at the end of the day we are all individuals. Other people might not be having the same reaction that you are, so while you can certainly ask other people about their results, make sure the conversation moves on, as it can be a hard time for people who didn’t do as well as they expected. Rest assured, though, your life will not be determined by your ATAR. In fact, your results won’t matter in a few months time, so take a breath, play with the cards you've been dealt and start planning the next exciting phase of your life!

Choosing your VTAC preferences

As the date for submitting your VTAC preferences approaches, we want to give you some tips for making this choice. Selecting your VTAC preferences can feel intimidating. I think there are two main reasons why this might be scary.

1. What if I don’t get into any of the courses I choose?
2. What if I choose a course, and then when I start studying, I hate it?

But your VTAC preferences are not the last study or career choice you will ever make. If you’re still feeling unsure about your choices, don’t worry!

What if I don’t get into any of the courses I choose?

• Make sure you put a whole range of courses on your preference list. The first one or two should be your dream courses, even if you think there is no chance you’ll get into them. The body of your list should be ones you want that are realistic. Then make sure the last couple are courses you would still be happy to do, but which have entry requirements you’re pretty sure you can achieve.

• Your first round selections are not the ‘be all and end all.’ You can change your preferences once you know your ATAR. Learn about change of preference here. If you realise you did much better or much worse than you expected, you can change your course preferences so that you have some more realistic options.

• Put your courses in order of preference. This seems really obvious, but a lot of people put their preferences in order of highest ATAR to lowest ATAR, or some other method. However, the entrance score for a course can change from year to year. You never know exactly what you’ll get, so make sure you list the courses in the order you actually want them.

What if I choose a course, and then when I start studying, I hate it?

You won’t know exactly what a course is going to be like until you’re in it, but here are some things so you’ll have a better idea of what uni will be like.

• Be prepared. Find out as much as you can about all the courses you’re applying to. It’s best to be well-informed. You can tour universities to get a feel for them. You can read about courses on the university’s website. You can search the internet to see if current students are blogging or leaving reviews for their course or subjects. You can find out what subjects are offered within individual courses. You can look up what graduates from those courses are doing. Think about what’s important to you – it might be leaving university with a job, or leaving simply with an open mind.

• You can transfer between courses once you’re at university. If you hate your course, you can usually transfer to a different course at the same university. You might even get credit for the units you’ve already studied. I know someone who purposefully applied for a course she didn’t want, because she knew she would be able to get into it and then transfer to the course she did want. I also know someone who applied to a course she didn’t want, and then discovered that she loved it, and has changed her career path.

• University will be a bit difficult for at least the first semester. Once you start, try to separate your feelings about the social side of uni from your feelings about the academic side. The first semester can be lonely – you might not know many people, and you might have moved out of home for the first time. It’s harder to make friends than at school, as you don’t spend as much time with the same people. If you’re struggling to make friends, it’s totally normal, but feeling lonely doesn’t mean the same thing as hating your course.

Finally, the reality is that University isn’t for everyone. Success can often be measured in pretty confined terms – go to a “good” uni, get a “good” job, make lots of money. But your happiness is also really important. Measure success in terms of goals you set yourself, rather than ones other people set for you. Listen to people’s advice, but make up your own mind at the end of the day.

Making the most out of Open Days

This week we’re focusing on Open Days. Today our Education Support Officer, Chris, will give us some insights into her own Open Day experiences just a few years ago.

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I attended Open Days in both year 11 and 12. I would definitely recommend spreading out the Open Day madness across two, or even three, years. August of year 12 is a busy time, and you probably don’t want to spend every weekend travelling to a different Open Day.

If your parents will be driving you to Open Days, you might want to ease the strain on them by carpooling with your friends. I attended a couple of Open Days with a friend who was interested in studying a similar course. We attended information sessions together and asked questions of the same faculty members. Taking a friend is a great way to hear a question you might not have thought of or see a part of campus you might not have visited. It also meant that our parents only had to drive us every second weekend!

If you think you’ll be living at home or in a similar area while you attend uni, it’s a great idea to take the public transport or bike route you would take. (You could also drive, depending on whether you think you’ll be driving to uni and whether there is adequate and affordable parking on campus.) This will help familiarise you with the route and remove one small piece of stress from your first week of class.

I lived in a residential college for my first couple of years of uni. This meant that on Open Day, I had to tour all the colleges as well as the university campus. This will take a lot longer than you expect, so narrow it down to your top choices and just visit those ones. If you won’t be able to live at home and don’t know about the housing options for the particular uni, there will be people at Open Day who can help. They will tell you about university accommodation or provide advice and contacts if you’re going to be renting privately.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. University is unfamiliar, and there will definitely be some things you don’t expect or understand. The people helping on Open Day are there to assist and will definitely be friendly. They’ve also heard it all before, so don’t be embarrassed to ask something that feels silly or trivial, whether it’s “How many people do I have to share a room with?” (Zero) or “Can I take maths in my Arts degree?” (Yes, but I didn’t end up doing it).

Go into Open Day with an open mind. This is something I wish I’d done. I went to Open Days even though I felt like I’d already decided where I wanted to go. This meant I didn’t keep an open mind at some of the other universities, which I know would have been equally as good in different ways. Attend every Open Day like it’s the uni you will be attending.

Take notes at the end of the day. I also wish I’d done this, as once I’d visited a number of universities, all I could remember was some vague impressions rather than solid facts. Write down what you liked, what you didn’t like, what your housing and transport situation would be, and which courses you’re most interested in.

You don’t need to take every piece of paper you’re offered. I finished year 12 with about three trees worth of Open Day brochures. Most of this information is online anyway, so only take the brochures for the things you’re really interested in or things that you can’t find online.

It’s also a good idea to listen to what your parents thought. If you attend an Open Day with them, ask their opinion and really listen. They were at all the same events and casual chats as you, but they might have come out of it with different impressions. They know you really well, so they might have some good advice. But remember that in the end, it is your decision.

Stay hydrated and well-fed. You’ll collapse if you try to walk around all day without sustenance in a new environment where you’re constantly meeting new people and having to concentrate on a huge amount of information. There will most likely be free or cheap food on campus, or you could take a break and find a café nearby. My mum and I almost couldn’t keep going by the end of one Open Day – but it was lucky we did, because the last place we dragged ourselves to ended up being the residential college I stayed at for two years! You never know what you’ll miss out on if you let yourself get tired too early in the day.

Don’t be afraid to follow up if you missed something on Open Day. If you forgot to ask a burning question or have had a sudden change of mind about courses, there will always be someone you can email or call to find out what you need to know. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, as it’s important to make a well-informed choice about your future university!