Are you entering Years 10 or 11 and wondering what is VCE? Well, it’s pretty important, as it’s the official secondary school qualification in Victoria for years 11 and 12. Want to get a direct pathway into University? You need to complete VCE and get an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) score.
Now, the worst part of VCE is that everyone has an opinion on VCE. Your Parents, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents will all push their opinions onto you regarding what you ought to do.
Luckily, this guide is all you’ll need to understand VCE. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get reading!
What is the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE)?
How do you complete VCE?
What VCE subjects are available?
Why should I do VCE?
What is VCE subject scaling?
How does VCE contribute toward my ATAR?
What will I get from VCE?
What is the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE)?
As mentioned before, VCE is the official secondary school qualification in Australia. It offers a wide range of study options in the form of 4 Units.
Unit 1 and 2 is typically studied in Year 11, while Unit 3 and 4 is usually studied in Year 12. Every subject has 4 Units.
You don’t have to complete them in those years though. Many students do Unit 3 and 4 subjects in Year 11, some students even do them earlier (please keep in mind it is very difficult to do Units 3 and 4 in Year 11).
So, don’t think of Units 1 and 2 as Year 11, or Units 3 and 4 as Year 12, because that’s not how VCE works. Instead, think of them as two separate parts of a subject:
- Part 1 is Units 1 and 2
- Part 2 is Units 3 and 4
Both parts take a year to complete. And, in some subjects you can skip Part 1 and go straight into Part 2!
Once you complete enough units and finish VCE, you’ll get an ATAR, offering you a direct pathway into university — given you get the requisite ATAR and complete the right prerequisites.
If you prefer learning in a classroom environment, know you want to study in University right after school, and tend to prefer more academic activities, VCE is for you!
How do you complete VCE?
To complete VCE, you need to do the following:
Usually, you will do VCE over two years. Students will often complete anywhere between 16-24 Units depending on what they prefer.
Therefore, you don’t have to complete Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 of every subject you select. You could do two completely different sets of subjects for Units 1 to 2 and 3 to 4. What matters is you meet the above requirements, everything else is up to you.
Once you meet these qualifications, you’ll finish the VCE and get an ATAR – provided you pass all your subjects, that is.
Passing your subject is dependent on how the rest of your cohort goes, but don’t worry, to fail a VCE subject you’d basically have to put no proper answers down and draw all over your paper, you’ll be fine.
What subjects are available?
Each school determines which VCE subject options they provide, and most schools don’t offer all options.
Make sure to check with your school which study options are available.
Although, a majority of schools offer the basic subject options like Maths, English, Chemistry, History, Geography, Economics and so on. There are many options, so make sure to make the most of them!
When choosing your subjects, think about what degree you want to study in University. This is because each degree has prerequisites, which are subjects you must study in order to do the degree.
Want help picking your subjects? Read our guide on what you should consider when picking VCE subjects!
For instance, if you want to study commerce, you will likely have to complete Mathematical Methods, or else you won’t be able to get into the degree.
Most popular VCE subjects
If you’re curious about what VCE subjects are popular, here is a table of some of the most popular subjects:
| English | Chemistry |
| Foundation Mathematics | Physical Education |
| General Mathematics | Legal Studies |
| Mathematical Methods | Physics |
| Specialist Mathematics | History |
| Psychology | Geography |
| Health and Human Development | French |
| Business Management | Latin |
| Biology | Economics |
All VCE subject study areas
| VCE Subject Area | Subjects |
|---|---|
| Performing Arts | -Dance -Drama -Music -Theatre Studies |
| Visual Arts | -Art Creative Practice -Art Making and Exhibiting -Media -Visual Communication Design |
| Design and Technologies | -Agricultural and Horticultural Studies -Food studies -Product Design and Technologies -Systems Engineering |
| Mathematics | -Foundation Mathematics -General Mathematics -Mathematical Methods -Specialist Mathematics |
| Science | -Biology -Chemistry -Environmental Science -Physics -Psychology |
| English | -English -English as an Additional Language -Literature |
| Business and Economics | -Accounting -Business Management -Economics -Industry and Enterprise -Legal Studies |
| Humanities | -Classical Studies -Geography -History -Philosophy -Politics -Religion and Society -Sociology -Texts and Traditions |
| Languages | -Chinese -Indonesian -Japanese -Korean -Vietnamese -Latin -Classical Greek -French -German -Italian -Spanish |
| Digital Technologies | -Algorithmics -Applied Computing |
| Health and Physical Education | -Health and Human Development -Physical Education -Outdoor and Environmental Studies |
Want to know more? Become familiar with the hardest VCE subjects!
VCE VM Subjects
| VCE VM Subjects |
|---|
| Literacy |
| Numeracy |
| Work Related Skills |
| Personal Development |
What is the VCE Vocational Major (VM)?
The VCE VM is a 2-year applied-learning program within VCE. Providing students with an opportunity to have real life experiences in a range of different industries.
Essentially, the VCE VM program incorporates a range of additional subjects that you can complete while doing VCE.
VM subjects are a great choice for those who also want to learn in the real world and get some employment experience.
Not sold on doing VCE? Be sure to have a look at the VCE Vocational Major as well!
Why should I do VCE?
So, why VCE?
Well, VCE can prepare you for the following pathways:
VCE can do this through it’s wide breadth of subject options, which are provided to ensure students have a wide breadth of directions they can take.
Although, VCE is a very academic pathway. There’s a lot of study that is crammed into very little time. You will feel constantly under the pump for the 2 years it takes to complete.
Therefore, if you want to do VCE, be prepared for the grind that comes with it.
Although, I don’t want to scare you too much – despite it’s reputation you can have a healthy lifestyle while doing VCE. It’s just important to know that it is academically challenging.
What is VCE subject scaling?
Scaling represents the relative difficulty and competitiveness of a subject.
It doesn’t measure how inherently “hard” a subject is, but rather the level of competition to achieve a high score and the overall performance of students in that subject.
Subjects with greater competition tend to have higher scaling. For instance, Latin, known for its difficulty in achieving high marks, sees intense competition.
If less Year 12 students are getting a raw study score of 30 in Specialist Math (the second best scaling subject in 2021!) than in Business Management, this means Specialist Math is the more competitive subject.
With this logic, getting one of the top spots for Business Management would be roughly the same as the top 10% for Specialist Math.
Read our article on why VCE students should pay less attention to subject scaling!
Why Compare the Subjects?
Why Do We Need to Scale?
Initially, scaling might appear unfair—you could invest the same amount of study time in Specialist Mathematics as in Business Management.
However, the intention behind scaling is to enable VCAA to accurately and fairly assess your performance relative to the entire Year 12 cohort in Victoria.
VCAA employs extensive data and statistical methods to adjust raw study scores appropriately.
Once your scores are aggregated, applying to universities becomes straightforward. Instead of submitting individual study scores, you only need to provide your ATAR!
What is a VCE Study Score?
Your “raw” study score is a ranking of how well you performed in a certain subject. The scale goes from 0-50, with a mean of 30.
See what study scores your Unit 3, Unit 4 and exam results can get with our VCE Study Score Calculator!
The simplest way to understand what your study score is by visualising a bell curve:
Students with a raw study score of 30 will sit on the centre of the bell curve — this is where the majority of Year 12 students will sit on a subject.
Learn more about study scores in our article about SAC Rankings and how they affect your ATAR!
How Much Will My Study Score Get Affected by Scaling?
Making the step up from Year 11 to Year 12? Here’s how to ace it…
How Does the VCE Scaling Report Work?
Upon completing Units 3 & 4 of a VCE subject, you receive a subject score.
These scores reflect your performance relative to other students taking the same units. A subject score of 30 places you at the cohort’s midpoint, while a score of 45 indicates you’ve outperformed 98% of the cohort.
However, these scores do not consider that some subjects attract stronger cohorts. For instance, ranking in the top 50% of Specialist Maths students still denotes high achievement.
To address this, subject scores are scaled based on the cohort’s performance across all subjects, providing a clearer picture of each subject’s competitiveness.
Also looking for tips on acing your VCE SACs? We’ve got you covered!
Which VCE Subjects Scale Up The Most?
See how the best scaling subjects have changed over the years!
Which VCE Subjects Scale Down the Most?
See how the worst scaling subjects have changed over the years!
How does VCE contribute toward your ATAR?
An ATAR is calculated from the scaled study scores from your top four VCE scoring subjects (which must include at least one English subject) plus 10% of your fifth and sixth subjects (if you did any).
Disclaimer: These results are purely an example and are not indicative of potential results.
Each ATAR score has an aggregate range. In the above example, the aggregate range for 98.4 was approximately 184 to 187 (for 2022).
So, your ATAR is determined by which range your aggregate score falls into.
Overall, VCE and VCAA give you your study scores, while VTAC gives you your ATAR!
Find out the most recent aggregate to ATAR conversions!
How are Study Scores calculated?
#1: Students in their cohort are ranked
Moderation groups include all students from your school (and sometimes partner schools) who are taking a particular subject.
For example, if you attend School A and study English, you would belong to the English moderation group at School A.
Within these groups, students are ranked based on their coursework grades, which determines their SAC rankings. The process is straightforward: the student with the highest coursework grade holds the first SAC rank, the second-highest holds the second SAC rank, and so on.
#2: A common scale is developed
Two scales are made from school-assessed scores and external assessment scores. These two are aligned by matching fixed points like the median scores as closely as possible.
Extract obtained from VCAA
However, please note that every VCE student’s SAC rank is preserved in this process.
#3: Students school-based assessment scores are compared
Subsequently, every VCE student’s score is then placed on this common scale. The scores will be ranked and distributed to fulfil the following benchmarks!
2% of students will get a score of or above 45
9% of students will get a score of or above 40
26% of students will get a score of or above 35
53% of students will get a score of or above 30
78% of students will get a score of or above 25
93% of students will get a score of or above 20
Statistics obtained from VCAA
On the other hand, it is important to note that Statistical Moderation does not alter the rank of students. Therefore, a student given the top rank for school based assessments will have the top score after statistical moderation no matter how they perform on the exam.
Statistical moderation example
See how your Study Score will be affected from here using the Study Score Report!
What will I get from VCE?
When you finish your VCE studies, you’ll get:
- An ATAR.
- A Statement of Results from VCAA.
- Your Victorian Certificate of Education.
What is an ATAR?
The ATAR, otherwise known as the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, provides a standardised system that indicates your rank and overall academic achievement, in relation to other students.
ATARs can range between 0.00 and 99.95, with increments of 0.05.
Just remember, it’s a percentile rank — not a mark. So if you manage to achieve an ATAR of 80.00, this doesn’t mean that your results equate to 80%. The ATAR demonstrates that you’ve placed in the top 20% of students in Victoria in your Year 12 cohort.
The ATAR is typically used to assist universities with selecting students for their courses. For example, a university may require an ATAR of 75.00 for a humanities degree — for guaranteed entry into the course, you’ll need an ATAR of 75.00 or above.
Learn more about the ATAR with our article on the VCE ATAR system!
What is a Statement of Results?
A statement of results shows your VCE Unit results and GAT statement.
The VCE Unit results will have your grade for each semester, and you study scores as well.
The GAT statement will have your results and will outline whether you met the standards for literacy, mathematics and so on.
Don’t know what the GAT is? Read our Guide to the GAT!
These sample Statement of Result documents have been obtained through VCAA.
Above is an example of a statement of results after completing VCE.
You won’t really need this for anything, it’s just nice to keep around.
Sometimes a potential employer may ask for proof of your ATAR results, in which case you would give them your statement of results.
What is a Victorian Certificate of Education?
The above sample is from the VCE website ‘VCE Certificate’ page.
The Victorian Certificate of Education is simply to confirm that you or someone else has completed VCE. The certificate doesn’t change based on what ATAR you get or what school you go to.
You’ll never need to use this, it’s rather just a nice confirmation that you have finished secondary school in Victoria!
Mine’s been tucked away in a closet, never to be seen again. Maybe hang it up on a wall somewhere? I guess it’s nice to have some display of your efforts throughout your high school years!
That’s all!
While VCE seems intimidating to newcomers, it’s actually not that complex once you delve into it.
My piece of advice for VCE is to take it one step at a time.
There are a lot of parts of VCE that are completely outside of your control, so just focus on what you can influence.
That includes your study, what subjects you choose, and your work life balance!
Are you looking for some help in preparing for VCE?
We have an incredible team of VCE tutors and mentors!
We can help you build effective study habits, ace your tests and assessments, while learning healthy management techniques with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or online!
We’ve supported over 8,000 students over the last 11 years, and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational VCE tutor and mentor, get in touch today or give us a ring on 1300 267 888!
Max Huyton is the VIC Growth Marketer for Art of Smart and a Laws and Commerce student at Monash University. In his other life, Max spends his time reading and writing whenever he gets the chance and cooking extremely mediocre dishes for friends and family.
