Article & Journal Resources

Elaine Wenn

EACH of your study scores provided by the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority is calculated from the total marks you received for each graded assessment in that study.

The study scores for all studies are reported on a scale of 0 to 50 with an average score of 30.

The VCE study score is not a score out of 50. It is a ranking or relative position which shows a student's performance compared with all other students who took that study in the same year.

A student with a VCE study score of 30 is in the middle of the cohort, or has performed better than about half of all students.

A student with a VCE study score of 40 has performed better than about 91% of all students who did that study.

What this means is that the middle student in any study will have a VCE study score of 30, regardless of how strong the other students were in the study and how difficult it was to achieve the middle ranking.

VTAC's role is to provide a way of ranking students that is fair to students even though they have taken different studies.

Where the student competition in a study is strong, VCE study scores need to be adjusted upwards; otherwise students in that study would be disadvantaged.

Similarly, in a study where the student competition is weaker, the study scores need to be adjusted downwards; otherwise students doing that study would be advantaged.

Scaling ensures that it is equally easy to attain a high ENTER regardless of the combination of studies a student undertakes.

This is not always well understood and many students believe that to achieve their best possible ENTER they need to choose studies that are scaled up.

This is not true and may even work against you.

If you choose a study that you are not very good at simply because it will be scaled up, the VCE study score you receive will be a lot lower than what you could expect in a study you are good at and that interests you.

Yes, your score will be scaled up, but it is unlikely that your scaled ENTER subject score would be any higher than if you had chosen a more suitable study, even one that is scaled down.

The way to ensure that you achieve your best ENTER is to choose your studies according to what you are interested in; what you are good at; and what studies you need for future study.

The calculation of the ENTER is a complicated process, but it is the fairest system developed by experts which allows students to undertake the studies they want and enables tertiary institutions to compare students who have completed different combinations of VCE studies.

The use of the ENTER guarantees that all studies are treated equally and provides you with a common score for tertiary selection across Australia.