Guide
How to read VCE school tables
A plain guide to the columns on ranking and school pages: medians, 40+ percentages, cohort size, and rank.
·5 min read
The statewide rankings table and individual school pages pull the same underlying statistics: senior secondary outcomes for a given reporting year. If you know what each column is measuring, you can use the table without over-reading it.
Reporting year first
Every row is tied to a reporting year (the year of the VCE results release you selected). Comparing a 2023 row with a 2025 row is fine for trend spotting, but it is not a like-for-like “league table” unless you understand cohort changes—see our note on limitations.
Common columns
- Median study score — middle study score across the contributing scores at that school for that year. See how medians are reported.
- Percentage of study scores ≥ 40 — share of all study scores at the school that reached 40 or higher. This rewards breadth of strong results as well as peaks at the top.
- Number of VCE students — scale of the completing cohort used in the statistics. Very small cohorts make medians and percentages more volatile.
Rank order
Overall rank on this site is derived from the same published measures (see methodology). It is a transparent ordering, not a claim about “best school for your child.” Use rank as a sort key to find schools in a band of outcomes, then read the actual numbers.
School profile pages
A profile page repeats the headline metrics and can show year-to-year movement where data exists. If something looks flat or missing, it is usually because that year's row is not present in the source extract, not because nothing happened at the school.