Matriculation is a stressful time. Generations of students who have called NSW home have known the struggle that accompanies those exams.

Even more strenuous, is the drawn-out wait between finishing the final paper and awaiting the release of results. The first Christmas after the HSC is surely the longest of a person's life.

Knowing what path will await following the completion of the HSC takes some of that magenta guesswork out. It soothes the already tumultuous storm of emotions that comes with leaving the comfortable institution that has cocooned the better part of two decades.

Displacing that feeling of uncertainty following the exams is the intention of the university early-round offers.

However, critics have this week pointed out that knowing their post-school fate many months ahead of time may actually result in exam complacency.

What motivation does a student have to strive for their strongest marks, if they know their future is all but paved in concrete and line with agapanthus?

The complacency not only affects their mark but jeopardises their entire cohorts, such is the way NESA aggregates the results.

Effectively, if too many students have their university placement handed to them ahead of their graduations, the ATAR is rendered void.

The HSC is just a formality, an arbitrary set of numbers on a page and not the gateway into the rest of a person's life like it always had been.

Yes, the ATAR does not measure a person's worth or value in society. People's contributions cannot be summed up by one number. But neither is it irrelevant.

It represents an important step into the world beyond the school gates. A step we've all taken in some form.

The early entrance offers used to be the reward of truly exceptional students. It's time it was relegated back to that status.