Orange High School graduate William Boyd spent the past year studying with the goal of achieving an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of 90 and was surprised when the results were released on Friday.
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Not only did he meet his goal, but with a ATAR of 98.75 he is in no doubt of being able to study the course of his choice and he’s already been granted early entry.
“I want to do engineering at the University of Wollongong so I should be able to get in,” William said.
He was one of 68,816 students in NSW and one of 103 students at Orange High School who were awarded their HSC this year.
The school had 41 scores in the top band and a success rate 7.26 per cent, which is higher than the state median of 5.47 per cent.
The ATAR, is used for entry into university and HSC subject marks were announced on Thursday.
Fellow Orange High School graduate Thomas Zeylemaker also exceeded his goal of 93 by getting an ATAR of 97.7.
He said he’s hoping to do a bachelor of commerce at the University of Melbourne followed by a major in accounting.
James Sheahan Catholic High School had 131 students sit the HSC this year and there were 46 high scores with a school success rate of 6.13 per cent.
Among their school’s graduates were Brendan Geoghegan, whose ATAR was 98.35, and Mary Munro, whose ATAR was 98.3.
“I was aiming around there … I’m doing law at Macquarie University, I got an offer yesterday,” Brendan said.
“I was very relieved, very happy as well, I’m doing teaching next year at Bathurst,” Mary said.
“I was really more nervous for [Thursday] with the [HSC] results coming out, you sort of have an idea of how you go when you get those results.”
Figures were not available for Orange Christian School but one of its high performers, Bethany Ostini said she grew up on a farm and wants to work with large animals so she’s hoping her ATAR of 87.55 will enable her to study to become a vet at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga.
Figures were also not available for Orange Anglican Grammar School.
Kinross Wolaroi School was the highest performing school in Orange and ranked 130th in NSW and was the only Orange school to make the top 150.
With a success rate of 12.95 per cent it had 146 students sit the HSC and there were 109 high scores.
Kinross Wolaroi School graduate Parham Raoof’s ATAR of 97.85 was just shy of his goal of 98.
“But I’m really happy with that, I can’t complain … I want to go to Sydney University just go straight to uni, I’m not sure yet for the under grad but I want to do post grad medicine,” he said.
Harry Fisher, also of Kinross Wolaroi School cut it close with his result.
He said he wanted 90, his predicted score was 90.1 and he ended up with an ATAR of 91.6.
“It was really pushing it so I just went hard in the HSC,” he said.
Canobolas Rural Technology High School had 38 students sit for the HSC and graduate Ellena Hicks was excited with her result.
“I got 84.35, which is all I need to get into a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Music at Monash University,” she said.