VTAC Year 10 Guide
Choosing senior school studies for the right reason.
If you’re a current Year 10 student, this guide is designed to help you choose your Year 11 and 12 studies.
Start readingGetting started
In Year 10, you need to decide what to study in your senior school years. This involves thinking ahead to what you might like to do when you finish school. This page is designed to help you start your journey towards life after school.
VTAC’s role
The Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) is a hub for tertiary course applications in Victoria. VTAC receives, processes and forwards applications to the tertiary institutions you have applied to. We don’t decide who gets into a course—that’s the institutions’ job. We just make the process a lot easier for you and them. We also process special consideration through the SEAS application and some scholarship applications. VTAC’s other role is calculating the ATAR for Year 12 students.
About you
It’s your decision
Study choice is your personal decision. It requires you to think carefully about three things:
- what you are interested in,
- what you are good at, and
- which studies will help you reach your goals.
While it’s a good idea to speak to other people about their experiences and what they think you are good at, the decisions you make about study should be your own. These are important decisions to set you on course for your life after school, but Year 10 is not the only chance you’ll have to work out what’s right for you. There are many pathways to tertiary study and the career you want.
Your strengths and interests
When making decisions about what to study next, think about what you have already experienced. What did you enjoy? What didn’t you enjoy? Which part of a school subject did you like the best? What are your strengths? What are your passions?
Making your study decisions also involves considering what you might like to experience in the future. What are some things you’d like to try, and why do you think they interest you? Which jobs or studies might give you an opportunity to try these new things?
This process of self-reflection, of really understanding yourself, can take a long time. That’s why we encourage you to start in Year 10, when a little bit of reflection can help you work out what to study in Year 11 and 12. Use our Strengths and Interests worksheet to start reflecting on different aspects of your experience. You can return to the worksheet each year as you get a better idea of who you are and what decisions are right for you.
Setting and reaching goals
Goal setting is a way to work out what you want to achieve in the future. Once you set a goal, you can then break up your journey there into steps. This gives you a map to follow and helps you take achievable steps towards your goal.
Goals can be long-term, for well into the future, or short- or medium-term. Often long-term goals have medium-term and short-term goals that lead to them.
You can set goals for all kinds of reasons. You might have goals for your career, personal interests, experiences and the way you want to live your life. Career goals and personal goals often depend upon each other.
Goal setting can be useful when choosing your studies, because setting goals can help you work out what to do next.
For example, a long-term goal might be career related: you want to work as a social worker. Your medium-term goal might be to study social work at university and your short-term goal might be to complete the VCE.
Or your long-term goal might be lifestyle related: you want to travel. So your medium-term goal might be to save enough money to travel and then your short-term goal would be to secure a job to earn money to travel.
We’ve created another worksheet with examples to help you set your goals and plot your journey towards achieving them.
Deciding on your senior secondary qualification
Many life goals need money to make them possible. Most people get money by working, and most careers require you to have completed secondary and tertiary qualifications. Tertiary qualifications (like Bachelor degrees, Diplomas and Certificates) are those completed after you finish secondary school.
Tertiary courses set a range of requirements for entry. Most of those offered through VTAC require completion of VCE (or equivalent).
If you choose to complete the VCE Vocational Major, you will not receive an ATAR and will only be able to apply for some courses.
Before deciding on a senior secondary qualification, it is important to look at the tertiary courses you might want to study and find out the secondary school qualification required.
If you don’t complete a Year 12 qualification, there are limited other pathways to tertiary study. Speak to your careers practitioner and institutions about pathways.
VCE
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) is responsible for the two Victorian senior secondary certificates: the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), including the VCE Vocational Major and the Victorian Pathways Certificate (VPC). The VCAA has a publication to help you plan your VCE or VPC studies called Where to Now? Make sure you check it out.
Table of Victorian senior secondary qualifications
| Senior secondary qualifications | ||
|---|---|---|
| Non-ATAR studies | ATAR studies | VCE equivalents |
Victorian Pathways Certificate (VPC) VCE Vocational Major |
Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) May include: » VCE studies » VCE VET studies » other approved VET studies, and » one approved higher education study. |
International Baccalaureate (IB) Interstate Year 12 Approved overseas Year 12 equivalents |
VCE equivalents
Tertiary institutions recognise many other secondary school qualifications as equivalent to the VCE. This includes an interstate Year 12 qualification and the International Baccalaureate (IB)—offered by a small number of Victorian schools.
Download
Research
Researching tertiary education
You have two years until you need to choose the tertiary courses you will apply for. That’s two years to research what’s on offer and what’s right for you. It takes time to weigh up your different options, so don’t leave it to the last minute.
Tertiary education means it comes after secondary education. In other words, courses at universities, TAFEs and independent tertiary colleges—study you can do after completing secondary school. There are two types of tertiary education in Australia: vocational education and training (VET) and higher education.
Different courses teach different skills, capabilities and knowledge at different levels. They can take different amounts of time to complete and lead to different outcomes. What is important is that you look for courses that are right for you: courses that will help you reach your goals.
Year 10 course research essentials
In Year 10 you’ll be asked to choose the Year 12 qualification you want to complete and your study plan for Year 11 and 12. To make good decisions, you will need to research tertiary courses.
In particular, you need to know
- what type of tertiary courses your chosen Year 12 qualification can lead to, and
- the entrance requirements, including prerequisite studies, that are required for courses you might consider.
Research tools
VTAC research tools
VTAC has a range of tools and information to support you.
- CourseSearch is an online database for researching tertiary courses.
- CourseSearch includes a filter called the VCE Prerequisite Explorer. This filter helps you create and change VCE programs while identifying prerequisite studies needed for entry into tertiary courses.
- The comprehensive VTAC Tertiary Research Guide covers:
- Types of tertiary courses
- Researching campus life
- The cost of study
- Research questions to ask
- How to use VTAC’s course research tools
- Planning pathways
- You can also download and complete the Year 10 tertiary course research plan
Visiting institutions: open days and campus events
Studying is much more than the course you’re interested in—it’s also about finding an institution that is the right fit for you. Open days, campus tours and tertiary experience days give you the opportunity see facilities and ask questions. While campus tours are small events, open days can be the size of a festival with teaching staff and student services staff on hand to answer any questions you have. It’s a good idea to visit a couple of open days over Year 10 and 11. This is so you have less research to do when you’re in Year 12.
Current students and graduates
Do you know of anyone who is a student or graduate of a course or institution you’re interested in—maybe a friend’s older sibling? Or someone working in a field you’re interested in? If you can't think of anyone, ask your careers practitioner for help. Ask these people for a chat and make a list of questions first. Don’t speak to just one person, get a range of perspectives.
Researching pathways
As you research courses and careers, you’ll find there’s often more than one way to reach your goals. Planning pathways helps you identify your preferred pathway for entry into a course and, importantly, gives you back up options in case you aren’t selected into your preferred course right away. Read more about pathways in the VTAC Tertiary Research Guide.
Download
Research
Entrance requirements
No matter how well you perform in Year 12, or how much you want to do a course, if you don’t fulfil all the entrance requirements you won’t be considered.
1. Minimum tertiary entrance requirements
Minimum tertiary entrance requirements are the minimum level of education you need to have completed to be considered for selection into tertiary studies when applying through VTAC. If you have successfully completed the VCE (or equivalent) you will meet the minimum tertiary entrance requirements for all undergraduate courses.
If you are studying the VCE Vocational Major or Victorian Pathways Certificate, there will be fewer courses that you will meet the minimum tertiary entrance requirements for. Read more about minimum tertiary entrance requirements.
2. Institutional entrance requirements
Some institutions have specific institutional requirements you must meet. For example, this could be an age requirement, or some universities might specify a minimum ATAR. If specified, institutional requirements can be found in the participating institutions section of our website.
3. Essential requirements and admission criteria
When you are preparing to apply for courses, you will need to make sure you complete all the essential requirements and admission criteria—including prerequisite studies—required for each course. These are updated every year and listed in VTAC CourseSearch.
Using CourseSearch as a Year 10
CourseSearch is a tool for researching tertiary courses. It lists all the courses available through VTAC for the following commencement period. It is an important tool for Year 12 students because it shows the courses available next year and the specific entry requirements for each.
Year 10 students can use CourseSearch to search for your interests and find related courses. Each course entry provides an overview of the course content. CourseSearch gives you a good idea of the range of courses available to study, as most of these courses will be available in the future, although some might close and new courses will appear.
The ‘essential requirements’ and ‘admission criteria’ sections list any interviews, tests, supplementary forms or other requirements applicants need to meet. Prerequisite studies, for the next course intake, are also listed here. However, as a Year 10 student, you need to know that the information about eligibility and application requirements might change by the time you’re ready to apply. This includes prerequisite studies. To find the prerequisite studies required for the year you’ll be applying, use the VCE Prerequisite Explorer in CourseSearch.
See below for information about using Prerequisite and Course Explorer to find prerequisites for courses commencing in 2026.
Research
Prerequisite studies
In Year 10 you don’t need to know exactly what you want to do after school, but you do need to think about the direction you want to take. This is because some courses have prerequisite studies. These are senior school studies you must complete to be considered eligible for entry into the course.
The studies you need to get in: prerequisites
Prerequisites are specific subjects you must complete to be eligible for a course, because the knowledge and skills from these are required to understand the course’s content. If you haven’t completed the required prerequisites (or equivalent) for a course, you won’t be selected. This is why it is important to look ahead to what you might want to study after school, before selecting your Year 11 and 12 subjects.
Prerequisites can change from year to year and are published two years in advance. If you are a current Year 10 student, you can find prerequisites for 2026 in the 2026 Prerequisites list. These prerequisites are also available in VCE Prerequisite Explorer in CourseSearch in July.
Prerequisites are set by each individual course, not VTAC, so courses with exactly the same name at different institutions can have different prerequisite requirements. Always check this information carefully.
Minimum study scores for prerequisites refer to your VCE study score that you receive from the VCAA. Scaled scores are only used for the ATAR calculation.
If you fail to meet a prerequisite, talk to the institution about pathways into the course that allow you to complete the prerequisite, or an equivalent such as a bridging course or an equivalent tertiary subject.
IB and interstate prerequisites
If you are studying the International Baccalaureate (IB) or an Australian Year 12 qualification other than the VCE, you can use our online tool to find interstate subjects meeting Victorian prerequisites.
Using the VCE Prerequisite Explorer
The VCE Prerequisite Explorer in CourseSearch helps you create and change VCE programs and identify prerequisite studies needed for entry into university and VET courses commencing in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
It allows you to:
- explore courses you will be eligible to apply for after finishing year 12,
- see the impact on the range of courses available to you by adding and removing different VCE studies, and
- filter tertiary courses by a range of factors including area of interest.
As well as completing prerequisites, you also need to meet the minimum VCE study score requirement. These will be published in CourseSearch in the year that you make your application.
For detailed instructions on using the VCE Prerequisite Explorer see VCE Prerequisite Explorer in CourseSearch.
Download
ATAR
The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR)
The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, or ATAR, is a ranking given to qualifying students on completion of Year 12. It is a tool designed specifically to assist some tertiary institutions in selecting applicants for some courses.
While it might seem like the ATAR is the most important thing about the VCE, it truly isn’t. It doesn’t represent you as a person or what you have learnt. And it doesn’t follow you throughout your life. It simply demonstrates where you stand in relation to everyone else in your age group, at a single moment in time and in regard to your academic performance at school.
Your ATAR represents the percentage of people in your age group that you have performed higher than. If you get an ATAR of 50, it means you have performed better than 50 per cent of your age group. If you get an ATAR of 75, it means you have performed better than 75 per cent of your age group. If you get an ATAR of 80, it means you have performed better than 80 per cent of your age group and so on, up to the maximum ATAR of 99.95.
There is no pass or fail ATAR. If you want to know what counts as a ‘good’ ATAR, the answer is that it’s the ATAR you need to get into the course you want.
ATAR rules and restrictions
There are rules and restrictions about which studies can count towards an ATAR. To qualify for an ATAR in Victoria, a student must:
- qualify for the VCE, and
- achieve study scores in at least four permissible Unit 3 and 4 VCE studies, including one from the English group.
‘Permissible’ studies can change from year to year. If you are completing Year 10 in 2023 – and Year 12 in 2025 – the ATAR calculation rules for students completing the VCE in 2025are available in the VTAC ATAR and Scaling Guide for 2025.
How is the ATAR calculated?
The answer to this question is explained in full in The VTAC ATAR and Scaling Guide for 2025
In brief:
- The calculation of your ATAR begins with your VCE study scores, provided by VCAA.
- VTAC then scales these scores to ensure fairness. This produces scaled study scores.
- An aggregate is then created by adding up:
- Your primary four: that is, your highest scaled study score in one of English, English (EAL), Literature or English Language, and the three next highest VTAC scaled study scores permissible.
- Your increments: Often ten per cent of any fifth and sixth permissible scaled study scores that are available.
- Students are then ranked in order of these aggregates, which are placed on a percentile scale with intervals of 0.05. The group of students with the highest aggregates will be assigned the highest ATAR of 99.95. ATARs below 30.00 are reported as ‘less than 30’ on printed ATAR statements, however the actual ATAR is available through the online results service.
How is the ATAR used in course selection?
Many courses get more applications than there are places, so entry into these courses is competitive. A range of criteria are used to assess your suitability for the course and to rank you against others who have applied to the course. Some courses use the ATAR as one of these criteria.
Courses that use the ATAR in selection publish an ATAR profile. This is a summary of selection data from the previous selection round. The piece of information that is most useful when applying is the ‘lowest selection rank’. This represents the minimum selection rank (ATAR or adjusted ATAR) needed to have been offered a place in that course in that selection period, provided other course requirements were met.
Lowest selection ranks are not set ahead of selection—they are produced as a result of the selection process. You can use the lowest selection rank from the previous year as a broad indicator of how competitive entry into a course was, however it is not a definite indicator of the selection standard in the future. The popularity of a course and the number of places available can change from year to year.
To find out if the courses you are interested in use the ATAR in selection, see the ‘essential requirements’ and ‘admission criteria’ sections of each course entry in CourseSearch. To learn more about the ATAR profile see The ATAR Profile Explained (PDF).
Download
ATAR
Scaling
In calculating the ATAR, VTAC scales all VCE study scores. This ensures students are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by the studies they choose.
A VCE study score is based on your results in school assessments and examinations. It is a score from 0–50, determined by the VCAA. It shows how you performed in that study, relative to all the other students doing that same study.
A scaled study score is calculated by VTAC. This is a score from 0.00 to 55.00, which shows how you performed in that study, relative to all students doing all studies. The scaled study score uses your VCE study score, the performance of all the other students in that same study, and their performance across all their other studies.
Scaling ensures fair comparison of students’ achievements across all their studies, regardless of what they have studied.
What scaling isn’t
Scaling is not done because some studies are inherently harder or easier than others. The idea of ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ studies is a myth, and the scaling process is the same for all subjects, regardless of the curriculum content. If you have a talent for an area of study, it will likely be easier for you than it is for others who don’t share your talent. It’s your strengths and weaknesses that make a study seem easier or harder. So consider what you are strongest at, instead of judging studies by other people’s perceptions.
If I choose studies that were scaled up last year, will I get a better ATAR?
Firstly, scaling is completed afresh each year. Don’t rely on the previous year’s scaling data being the same in your year of study.
Secondly, choosing a study that you are not very good at, or engaged in, simply because it might be scaled up can work against you.
If you want to get your best possible study score, make sure you are good at the study and that you are engaged in it. It is more likely that a ‘scaled down’ score, in a study you performed well in, will be higher than a ‘scaled up’ score in a study you struggled with.
For detailed information on scaling, see The VTAC ATAR and Scaling Guide for 2025
Study choice
Choosing your Year 11 and 12 studies
Now it’s time to bring your research together and choose the Year 11 and 12 program that is right for you. Here’s a worksheet to help you think it through.
How to choose
The information on these pages has been designed to help you think through the important things to consider when choosing your Year 11 and 12 subjects.
The ideal combination is made up of studies that:
- you enjoy,
- you are good at,
- reflect your study interests,
- help you meet your goals,
- meet any prerequisites,
- meet VTAC’s rules and restrictions for specific combinations (if you need to obtain an ATAR), and
- provide you with options should your interests change.
Get advice
Talk to other people about their experiences for helpful hints on planning your VCE program.
It’s your decision
What you study is your decision. Not your teacher’s, your parent’s or your friend’s. They might have good advice, but when it comes to deciding what to study, it’s up to you.
What if I just don’t know?!
If you have no idea which studies you want to take up after school, don’t panic! Keep your VCE study program broad across a range of different studies and go back to basics: what you love doing, and what you are interested in.
The decisions you make about your studies now are important, but they’re not the only chance you’ll have to choose or change your future studies or career. There are many avenues to tertiary study and the career you want.
How not to choose
Don’t choose a subject just because you think it will help your ATAR. Choosing studies simply because of how they were scaled last year doesn’t guarantee you a ‘good’ ATAR. Students typically perform lower in studies they don’t like or aren’t good at—most often this performance gap is lower than any upward scaling a study may receive.
Your next steps: keep researching
Researching courses and institutions can be a time consuming activity, especially if you’re not sure about what you want to do. That’s why we encourage you to start in Year 10. Here are things to continue doing:
- keep talking to your allies about your strengths,
- continue to explore your interests,
- make a record of what you don’t like as well as what you do like,
- find out about other peoples’ experiences,
- browse courses online through CourseSearch and institutions’ websites, and
- be aware that your interests and strengths may change.
Visit an open day
Whether you know what you want to do or not, visit open days or make an appointment for a campus tour. Studying is much more than the course you’re interested in—it’s also about finding an institution that is the right fit for you.
Find relevant work experience
Work experience gives you a preview of working life and is an excellent opportunity to experience a workplace and ask questions—make the most of it.
Do your best and look after yourself
No one expects you to have it all worked out—and many people are still searching for a preferred course or career well into adult life. If you make time to start reflecting on these things in Year 10, it can make decision-making easier later on.
If you are feeling stressed out, make sure you talk through what’s going on with one of your allies or a school counsellor. Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) and Youth Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) also provide free telephone counselling.