Years of hard work and study have culminated for Wagga's Year 12 students as many anxiously waited for their Higher School Certificate results that were released at 6am.
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A Wagga High School Year 12 student received his HSC results 40 minutes earlier than expected and was “overwhelmed” with his results.
Not knowing that he was dux of the school until the deputy principal’s phone call five minutes prior to the Daily Advertiser’s interview, Brad Li said he struggled sleeping in the lead up to results being released.
“I couldn’t sleep last night and I was absolutely terrified, but to be fair probably half the state was feeling the same,” Mr Li said.
“I woke up at 4am and I couldn’t get back to sleep and I got a text message of my results 40 minutes earlier than the 6am release time.
“I was told only five minutes ago that I am this year’s dux, so I feel pretty on top of the world right now.”
The 18-year-old said he “got lucky” with his results as he was competing against other academic peers.
“To be honest it took about an hour to settle in and the results were a lot better than I expected,” Mr Li said.
Mr Li said he has been renting a place for a week in the lead up to the results with eight of his close friends for “moral support”.
“My parents haven’t found out yet and my friends made a pact not to tell our parents until our ATARs are released Friday morning,” he said.
Hoping to study either quantum physics or neuroscience, Mr Li said he has been offered a scholarship at the Australian National University.
“Study was hectic, every single day with my group of mates, we’d go to the CSU library and spend about 10 hours studying, it was ridiculous and so intense, but four hours was probably spent procrastinating,” he said.
“Most nights I’d go to bed and there is this lump in my chest and could not get to sleep, all the stress and pressure.
“I like to dream big and so I put huge expectations on myself, which probably isn’t healthy.”
Students will be able to access their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank marks on Friday at 6am.
The Riverina Anglican College’s dux was Angus McKelvie-Hill, who achieved five band 6s, which is between 90 to 100 marks.
“We felt pretty good when we finished our HSC exams, but it’s a pretty big gap from then to now, it’s good to not be nervous anymore or wonder how we went,” Mr McKelvie-Hill said.
“You don’t really get any feedback after HSC, it’s just a number.
“I’m not feeling too nervous about my ATAR, from my HSC results I know what ball-park my results will fall in and what to expect.”
Another high-achiever at TRAC Elise Jay said having an early university course offer before undertaking HSC took a lot of pressure off.
“I felt increasingly nervous towards it, but you needed to be self-assured of your own efforts that you put into it,” Ms Jay said.
“I’m already into my university course that I wanted to get into, so I didn’t need to worry about my ATAR but I wanted to finish the right way.
“I found out that I got accepted into a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) at Wollongong University on October 16 and it took a lot of pressure off early on.
“The ATAR doesn’t mean everything, I think that’s what we all gained from this and early entries take the stress off,” she said.
Wagga Christian College’s dux was Luke Stumpf, who achieved band 6 results in biology, mathematics and mathematics extension 1.
For the second year in a row, the college earned a First in State award for a course in software design and development.
Jaya Armstrong, a student from Belrose in Sydney, studied the course through Wagga Christian College.
Departing principal Hugh MacCallum said it is “great” to see North Shore Sydney Schools utilising expertise from areas outside of Sydney.