Victoria’s perfect ATAR students all had one subject in common: advanced maths
?s 43 students who earned a perfect ATAR of 99.95 last year all shared a hard-to-miss academic edge: top marks in the state’s toughest maths
Victoria’s 43 students who earned a perfect ATAR of 99.95 last year all shared a hard-to-miss academic edge: top marks in the state’s toughest maths subjects. The result has put a spotlight on how Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics can shape end-of-school rankings in Victoria’s VCE system.
All 43 of the state’s highest achievers in 2025 studied both Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics, subjects that are scaled up because of their difficulty. The pattern stood out across a cohort of 49,310 VCE students who received an ATAR last year. Chemistry followed as the next most common subject among the top scorers, chosen by 37 of them, while English — compulsory for VCE students — counted toward 24 perfect ATARs.
Why the maths mattered
VTAC, which calculates the ATAR as a percentile rank from 0 to 99.95 using up to six subjects, says its scaling process is designed to avoid rewarding or punishing students simply for choosing one subject over another. In practice, though, the highest achievers last year overwhelmingly leaned into the two advanced maths courses, and that made a clear difference to their final rankings.
Teresa Tjia, chief executive of the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre, praised the breadth of studies among the perfect scorers. She said the 99.95 group reflected a wide spread of VCE subjects, with students across the cohort taking 28 different studies.
“The breadth of achievement of these students is reflected in the broad range of studies students have chosen across the VCE, including the 28 different studies undertaken by those achieving a 99.95 ATAR,” she said.
A narrow peak, a broad cohort
The perfect ATAR remains rare. Last year’s 43 top scorers were only a tiny slice of the Victorian students who entered the rankings, but their subject choices offer a useful clue for younger students weighing which VCE combinations to take.
Tjia’s advice to those still planning ahead was brief and practical, though the source material does not include the full quote. Her message was that VTAC’s scaling system means students should not fear being disadvantaged by their choice of subject.
That matters well beyond Victoria. Around the world, admissions systems often try to compare students taking very different senior secondary courses, whether they are in Australia, Britain’s A levels or international baccalaureate programmes. Victoria’s numbers show how one state handles that problem: scale the hardest subjects, rank students by performance, and let the results speak for themselves.
The message from the 2025 cohort is plain. If you want a perfect ATAR in Victoria, maths is a powerful weapon. And for the students who got there, the state’s admissions chief says their achievement stretched far beyond a single subject.
