When you receive your results and meet the requirements for VCE, you’ll see your ATAR next to your raw subject scores. While the raw subject scores are the ones you’ll see on your results page, they have already been scaled either upwards or downwards to calculate your ATAR.

Your ATAR is calculated from your scaled subject scores with your best subjects being weighted more heavily.

Only your best 6 subjects will count towards your ATAR which is why most people do 6 subjects, but you can take less (or more) subjects so long as you meet the requirements for completing the VCE.

Your (scaled) scores of your ‘Top 4’ subjects are added fully to your aggregate score, while only 10% of your ‘Bottom 2’ scores are added to your aggregate.

Your compulsory English Unit (English, English Language, Literature, EAL) must be included in your top 4, and if you choose to do all three Maths subjects (Further, Methods, Specialist), a maximum of 2 can be in your top 4.

Your aggregate score is then ranked against the rest of Victoria to give you your ATAR.

In 2016, a 90 ATAR required a 159 aggregate, while a ‘perfect’ 99.95 ATAR required a 211 aggregate.

This meant that to get a 99.95 in 2016 (and often other years) you needed to do one or more subjects which scaled past 50. These include subjects like Specialist Maths, Chinese, French, Latin and a handful of other languages.

This is because scoring 50s in 6 subjects would only result in a 210 aggregate!

Top 4: 50+50+50+50=200
Bottom 2: 5+5=10
Combined aggregate: 210
ATAR (2016): 99.90