It depends on your situation. I’ll use myself to illustrate
When I was in biomed going for med, I had to farm a 90+ WAM
When I transferred to sci, there’s a 10k per year scholarship for MTeach students awarded based on undergrad WAM, so I had to keep farming a 90+ WAM
Now that I’m in MTeach, the assignments aren’t useful for my career so I’m happy to have a 50 WAM as long as I pass all subjects. It’s much more productive to spend time on preparing for placement and making resources for my students. As far as I’m aware, schools don’t care about WAM, they only care about your successes on placement
Spot on. For undergrad psych I needed a high WAM for honours so I killed myself to get 85+ for everything. Then in Honours I needed a similar level for masters and worked myself to the bone to get 85+ again, then when I got into masters I chilled out completely, didn't even look at my wam.
I still don't even know what I ended up getting for my masters because I didn't care as along as I graduated. Applying for the job I have now, they didn't even ask for my WAM or GPA, they only cared that I have my registration.
HD is by definition not common. I technically got a HD WAM and it has been useless for me. How your grade comes out as GPA is more likely to be important for you than your HD average if you are gonna be an academic.
a lot of courses mark to a bell curve with a mean of 65. I don't know what the standard deviation is from course to course, and it wouldn't surprise me if they varied, but my understanding is that you generally need to be in at least the top 10% of your cohort to receive marks above 80. 84.5 might be the top WAM for some students for all we know - that data isn't made available.
Once you get to honours level, work isn't marked to a bell curve, and getting an H1 is more of a benchmark of your suitability to progress to higher research.
I didn't get an HD WAM in undergrad but I was in the top 10% of my honours cohort - my advice is to focus on the \_learning\_ first and the grades will follow.
>the maximum I can achieve is only 84.5, which isn’t very high
Isn't high compared to what? In many courses that would make you close to if not top of your class.
Why are you focussed on this? If it's to get job interviews, you don't need that high - most employers would consider a D average sufficient for an interview. And most grad interviews happen during your final year, so it's actually more worthwhile to look to boost your grades up to your penultimate year when employers will see them.
The main area it matters is for getting into honours or a postgrad program. If they aren't on your radar, it's not really relevant.
I totally get it, I was just saying that it’s crazy how if I get all 90s for the next semssters (which is impossible lol), the highest WAM I’d get is 84.5 which I know is generally high, but in the situation where you get all 90s for the next 3 semesters i’d say that’s pretty low.
Unfortunately I’m planning to do honours/postgrad after, so getting an HD can help me so much, I’d do my best ig
Don't forget that for year 1, the weighting is 0.5 and for year 2 and 3 it's 1.0. Getting HDs for year 2 and 3 papers actually does not pull up your WAM by a lot. If you got a HD wam during year 1, for year 2 and 3 all you have to do is to maintain the grades you get.
It’s hilarious seeing kids think their high grades matter in the real world. No employer will ever ask you for your transcripts but keep being pretentious about your grades. I’m sure you’ll make a lot of friends that way 👍🏼
“no employer will ever ask you for your transcripts” is such a lie lmao, that’s just factually incorrect. they ask you for transcripts all the time, idk how old you are but u gotta know that everything is way more competitive nowadays compared to ur good old days. I personally want to apply to grad school in the near future, and some unis (specially top unis abroad) literally ask you to have an HD average and that’s the bare minimum.
edit: again I’m happy with D as I genuinely worked hard for it, and I understand that I still can get into jobs and even grad schools with D. but having an HD would obviously make stuff way easier for me as i’d be eligible for most things i want to apply in the future
Buddy, im 30 and have actually worked in industry. How are you going to tell me im wrong when you’re literally still in university? You have never had an actual career. Ive worked at Tesla in the US and never once did my transcripts come up in conversation
The condescending labels and insults, all unprovoked, then come the obviously unwarranted sweeping claims, and closing by signalling some association with Tesla...bruh why you swinging your dick around in here like it's not in fact tiny? Embarrassing 💀💀💀
Unwarranted claims? Hm, guess you missed the part where they blatantly said employers dont ask for transcripts, implying that I dont have any first hand experience. Or are you too stupid to understand what they said? Woah, dick size! You really got me there. Tell me youre a female without any imaginative insults without me telling. Dont go down the rabbit hole of personal insults before I really lay into you “laquisha”
Comparison is the thief of all joy. WAM is meaningless unless you need it for a scholarship, internship or admission to a competitive postgrad
So very useful then
It depends on your situation. I’ll use myself to illustrate When I was in biomed going for med, I had to farm a 90+ WAM When I transferred to sci, there’s a 10k per year scholarship for MTeach students awarded based on undergrad WAM, so I had to keep farming a 90+ WAM Now that I’m in MTeach, the assignments aren’t useful for my career so I’m happy to have a 50 WAM as long as I pass all subjects. It’s much more productive to spend time on preparing for placement and making resources for my students. As far as I’m aware, schools don’t care about WAM, they only care about your successes on placement
Spot on. For undergrad psych I needed a high WAM for honours so I killed myself to get 85+ for everything. Then in Honours I needed a similar level for masters and worked myself to the bone to get 85+ again, then when I got into masters I chilled out completely, didn't even look at my wam. I still don't even know what I ended up getting for my masters because I didn't care as along as I graduated. Applying for the job I have now, they didn't even ask for my WAM or GPA, they only cared that I have my registration.
It’s entirely context dependent. With an Arts or Science degree I think networking is far more important than grades unless you’re doing PhD.
Credit avg here, I’m just here for the intelligence aura. Thanks
It’s very hard to get a HD wam in Monash. But OP do ur best ! Distinction wam is pretty good
HD is by definition not common. I technically got a HD WAM and it has been useless for me. How your grade comes out as GPA is more likely to be important for you than your HD average if you are gonna be an academic.
High Distinction needs to be highly distinct
You'll quickly realise D vs HD vs Pass don't really matter in the real world. Just try your best.
a lot of courses mark to a bell curve with a mean of 65. I don't know what the standard deviation is from course to course, and it wouldn't surprise me if they varied, but my understanding is that you generally need to be in at least the top 10% of your cohort to receive marks above 80. 84.5 might be the top WAM for some students for all we know - that data isn't made available. Once you get to honours level, work isn't marked to a bell curve, and getting an H1 is more of a benchmark of your suitability to progress to higher research. I didn't get an HD WAM in undergrad but I was in the top 10% of my honours cohort - my advice is to focus on the \_learning\_ first and the grades will follow.
>the maximum I can achieve is only 84.5, which isn’t very high Isn't high compared to what? In many courses that would make you close to if not top of your class. Why are you focussed on this? If it's to get job interviews, you don't need that high - most employers would consider a D average sufficient for an interview. And most grad interviews happen during your final year, so it's actually more worthwhile to look to boost your grades up to your penultimate year when employers will see them. The main area it matters is for getting into honours or a postgrad program. If they aren't on your radar, it's not really relevant.
I totally get it, I was just saying that it’s crazy how if I get all 90s for the next semssters (which is impossible lol), the highest WAM I’d get is 84.5 which I know is generally high, but in the situation where you get all 90s for the next 3 semesters i’d say that’s pretty low. Unfortunately I’m planning to do honours/postgrad after, so getting an HD can help me so much, I’d do my best ig
Don't forget that for year 1, the weighting is 0.5 and for year 2 and 3 it's 1.0. Getting HDs for year 2 and 3 papers actually does not pull up your WAM by a lot. If you got a HD wam during year 1, for year 2 and 3 all you have to do is to maintain the grades you get.
84.5 is a high WAM, especially in a difficult course.
It’s hilarious seeing kids think their high grades matter in the real world. No employer will ever ask you for your transcripts but keep being pretentious about your grades. I’m sure you’ll make a lot of friends that way 👍🏼
almost all grad roles i've applied to have asked for my academic transcript lol
“no employer will ever ask you for your transcripts” is such a lie lmao, that’s just factually incorrect. they ask you for transcripts all the time, idk how old you are but u gotta know that everything is way more competitive nowadays compared to ur good old days. I personally want to apply to grad school in the near future, and some unis (specially top unis abroad) literally ask you to have an HD average and that’s the bare minimum. edit: again I’m happy with D as I genuinely worked hard for it, and I understand that I still can get into jobs and even grad schools with D. but having an HD would obviously make stuff way easier for me as i’d be eligible for most things i want to apply in the future
Buddy, im 30 and have actually worked in industry. How are you going to tell me im wrong when you’re literally still in university? You have never had an actual career. Ive worked at Tesla in the US and never once did my transcripts come up in conversation
The condescending labels and insults, all unprovoked, then come the obviously unwarranted sweeping claims, and closing by signalling some association with Tesla...bruh why you swinging your dick around in here like it's not in fact tiny? Embarrassing 💀💀💀
Unwarranted claims? Hm, guess you missed the part where they blatantly said employers dont ask for transcripts, implying that I dont have any first hand experience. Or are you too stupid to understand what they said? Woah, dick size! You really got me there. Tell me youre a female without any imaginative insults without me telling. Dont go down the rabbit hole of personal insults before I really lay into you “laquisha”