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2021 ATAR/HSC Marks (3 Viewers)

chaevely_park

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It might be worthwhile to seek some advice on this - there are very few places in med for people applying as Uni students whereas the majority of places go to high school students. An ATAR of 98.85 isn’t far off from 99+ and I suspect interviews and UCAT results (for which you would now have more time to prepare) may be given greater weight than ATARs. My eldest (who begins her internship next week) gained a lower ATAR than my friend’s son and she didn’t get any rejections whereas he didn’t get any offers, across all the medical schools. She took a gap year as she was only 16 when she finished her HSC and she spent it volunteering in a nursing home, completed the St John’s advance course, charity work and travelling overseas (all of which are much harder to do, I realise, due to COVID). By the time she was interviewed she had gained maturity and life experiences that stood her in very good stead.

However, wrt your current plan, HD average, though challenging to maintain, should be reasonably competitive for a med place and diagnostic radiography is a potentially viable alternative career - I advised my daughter that emergency depts are open 24 hours and will always need urgent imaging so there’s always work for radiographers as long as they are willing to do evening & night shifts.
hello! how did your daughter prepare for her interview to "stand out" and show that she has these qualities?
 

Eagle Mum

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hello! how did your daughter prepare for her interview to "stand out" and show that she has these qualities?
She signed non-disclosure agreements, so it’s not appropriate to post details publicly (and to be honest, I didn’t ask her for details so that she wouldn’t breach her NDAs but she gave general feedback as to how she went in each interview). The main points I think I can safely share are:

a) She took a gap year and did voluntary work including working in a nursing home (she also travelled overseas and gained a lot of life experience), so whenever they probed for more details, she could provide them with plenty and there was easy flow of conversation in all her interviews. I don’t think any interview prep workshop can ever replace first hand experience, although with COVID restrictions, it’s unfortunately harder now to gain much life experience after year 12 ends than it was when my daughter finished school.

b) She answered every question honestly - her responses were sometimes contrary to the majority (she was told one of her responses was very unexpected) but she provided thoughtful justification (they thanked her for the insight she shared). I suspect a lot of med interview workshops (which probably shouldn’t exist given all interviewees sign NDAs) coach applicants to give similar responses. Interview panels probably hear hundreds of very similar responses with slight variations - if an applicant gives a different response and can explain themselves well, they are very likely to make an impression. This wasn’t my daughter‘s intentional strategy, but she hadn’t attended any interview coaching workshops and she simply answered every question honestly and some panel members unexpectedly gave really positive remarks.
 

Eagle Mum

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Flexing rights obviously. People say the purpose of the HSC and ATAR is for tertiary study. No. Thats stupid. its for flexing.
Flexing might be a post event phenomena, but I doubt that flexing would be a motivation for prospectively taking on a heavy study load. It could be that Uni prerequisite subjects, the student’s strongest subjects and the subjects the student finds most interesting are all different (noting that English is compulsory), so a student could be doing four units because they have to (eg. Eng & Chem), six to eight units that they are good at to maximise their ATAR (eg. 4U maths, physics, etc), two to four units that they love but aren’t confident of gaining high marks because assessments may be subjective (eg. music, art, a language) and possibly even two units because the teacher in the subject they were going to drop begged them not to drop it because that student is their top student.
 
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Directrix

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Flexing rights obviously. People say the purpose of the HSC and ATAR is for tertiary study. No. Thats stupid. its for flexing.

Flexing might be a post event phenomena, but I doubt that flexing would be a motivation for prospectively taking on a heavy study load.
Yeah, I'm just happy I'm the first in my family to go to UNI! That was my motivation for giving it my all in year 12. And while I admire the people getting into medicine/law, I'm happy with that late night email to be offered to study CS at UNSW!

(most either went straight to a work-force or have tafe/apprenticeship qualifications)
 

Directrix

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Yeah, I'm just happy I'm the first in my family to go to UNI! That was my motivation for giving it my all in year 12. And while I admire the people getting into medicine/law, I'm happy with that late night email to be offered to study CS at UNSW!

(most either went straight to a work-force or have tafe/apprenticeship qualifications)
Man, but when there was the prompt during enrolment to provide what was the highest education ur parents, I teared up because I've made it everyone, this is something not only me, but as a family is experiencing!

Thanks to all the mathemagicians and English bookworms for helping with my maths and English, wouldn't be at UNSW without everyone's assistance.
 

ExtremelyBoredUser

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Man, but when there was the prompt during enrolment to provide what was the highest education ur parents, I teared up because I've made it everyone, this is something not only me, but as a family is experiencing!

Thanks to all the mathemagicians and English bookworms for helping with my maths and English, wouldn't be at UNSW without everyone's assistance.
Hope to see you contributing to the forum as a Mathemagician or Bookworm for the Directrix's in BOS! You'll make your family very proud.
 

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