Volume 29 Issue 27 04 Sep 2020 15 Elul 5780

Careers

Claire Pech – Careers Advisor

Key points, dates and processes 

This week was one of our last Careers sessions with Year 12 and I wanted to highlight some key points, dates and processes for the coming weeks and beyond. Some of these links may prove useful for both students and parents over the coming months, and there are some positive Year 12 articles, also reflecting on how Year 12’s disruptive year will stand them in good stead to them in months and years to come.

  • Education Minister for NSW, Sarah Mitchell, reflects, apologises and offers hope to Year 12s. 
  • Michael Spence, Vice Chancellor of Sydney University, speculates on all of the other attributes other than the ATAR that matter now. “The ATAR does not measure all of the other wonderful things that you are.” 
  • NESA has now announced that all HSC students are able to have their COVID results fast-tracked if they are to be tested to speed up the diagnostic process, and to limit any time missed from studies. 
  • Here is everything you need to know from UAC about offers, finalising preferences, dates and the processes involved. 
  • UAC has updated some of the end of year dates and times that ATARs, HSC results, and university offers are coming out. All of this information is presented by UAC in slide format that I hope is easy to decipher. These are well worth printing out and sticking up somewhere at home, as students really need to take ownership of this process. This information can be found here. There is also a short video explaining the rounds system and preferences.

Rowan Kunz is a well-informed and experienced presenter of Year 12 choices at the end of the year. He shares some valuable insights into:

  1. What to do if you don’t get your goal ATAR (click here for the video)
  2. The three biggest mistakes students make when choosing a university degree (click here for the video):
    1. they don’t do enough research
    2. picking a course based on prestige
    3. assuming a high ATAR course equals a good quality course with high job prospects.

We are in the thick of ‘virtual’ Open Day season. I have been heavily advertising these: students and parents – please ensure students are accessing all of the information online here.

Finally, for all university and tertiary comparison statistics, please use this very handy tool ComparED which show comparisons statistics for courses based on student data.