Congrats to the OP on making it into uni and achieving his goal.
Just putting it out there though, there has to be at least some correlation between academic performance in the HSC (through a combination of hard work, dedication and natural ability) and ability to cope with study at a uni level. Why are people who received ATAR's in the 40's necessarily thinking uni is the best option? From what I can see uni study will be no easy task and perhaps people shouldn't be scraping to make some course just for the sake of saying they made uni.
I'm not trying to spread some elitist bullshit, really I'm not. But an ATAR in the 40's perhaps indicates that options other than university may be better suited to an individual straight out of school, such as work or tafe, and then uni later in life. Obviously there are extenuating circumstances like health and family reasons and I'm not referring to people who suffer from these.
Just my $0.02.