When Charlie Ashton and his mates plugged his HSC marks into an Atar calculator, he assumed it was broken. There was no way he’d scored a near-perfect 99.90.
But there’d been no mistake. “I was pretty surprised,” said the student from Sydney private school Shore.
“I thought I’d do well, but I never expected to do this well.”
Ashton was among 48 students in the state who achieved the same Atar when results were released on Thursday. A further 49 were awarded the holy grail: 99.95.
Of the 67,234 New South Wales students who completed their HSC this year, 55,523 students received an Atar – a slight increase on 2022.
Results landed via texts from 6am and became accessible online from 9am via the University Admissions Centre (UAC).
Ashton, who studied modern history, economics, four-unit maths and advanced English, attributed his success to studying with a friend and completing endless practice tests.
“Me and my friend would go to the library both days on the weekend [and] get lunch together – it made studying fun,” he said.
“By the end of the year, my teachers were probably sick of me sending drafts – but they marked them every time.”
About 17.5% of students received an Atar of 90 or above, while 35% recorded at least 80. Just over half received an Atar of at least 70.00.
In terms of school performances, North Sydney Boys topped the state and ended the 27-year reign of James Ruse agricultural high school, a selective public school. Private boys schools Sydney Grammar and Knox Grammar also performed strongly, according to the UAC.
Amity College in south-west Sydney also made the UAC’s list of top performers for the first time, with one in five students receiving an Atar over 90 and a graduate getting the coveted 99.95.
Students across the state took to social media to share footage of themselves checking their results in real time.
“I’m like, fully shaking,” one said, gasping and bursting into tears as he logged into the UAC website.
“What the …” he mouthed, collapsing into a chair. “Dreams do come true.”
The median Atar this year was 71.05, down slightly from 2022. Female students scored higher than male students overall, with a median Atar of 71.90 compared with 70.00 of their counterparts.
It comes as 128 students were celebrated for achieving first place in a HSC course, with a further 1,420 students recognised on the all round achievers list for gaining results in the highest possible band across 10 units of study.
Another 780 were featured on the top achievers list for earning one of the top places and a result in the highest band, and 18,516 students received at least one band six result, earning them a place on the distinguished achievers list.
Yara Natfaji from the Al Noori Muslim school was among them, topping her peers in urban and environmental science while hoping to study medicine at Western Sydney University.
On Thursday, she woke to find her Atar was 99.8.
“I am so proud of her,” said her father, Anas Natfaji.
After the “relief” of her results, Yara is planning to spend the day hanging out with family and friends.
“Stay consistent, that’s my advice,” she said to future graduates. “It’s the most important thing.”
Meanwhile, Valeria Mijas and Brandon Borg were elated to discover they’d scored 96 and 95, respectively, in their music courses.
The pair were graduates of Quakers Hill High School in north-west Sydney, which expanded to year 11 and 12 two years ago. This year, eight of its 43 students achieved band six results.
Borg, a talented metal guitarist who “looks like a rock god at the age of 18”, also scored a band six in physics and engineering.
He hadn’t picked up a guitar until year 7 music class – the same time that Mijas started playing the piano. Seeing her instinctive skills, the P&C donated a grand piano for her to practise on.
The school’s principal, Jason White, attributed its success to the intimacy that has been fostered in the classrooms.
“The local public school is a special environment, kids come [to specialist and private schools] from far and wide, we have a small catchment,” he said.
“Nobody is lost in the crowd; everyone is nurtured.”
The premier, Chris Minns, said the release of the results was “an important milestone for the class of 2023”.
“Whether or not today’s results are what you wanted – remember that this is just a step on your journey and there are many pathways to success,” he said.
The education minister, Jason Clare, said “it’s not the end of the world” for students who didn’t attain the score they’d hoped for.
Speaking on ABC radio, Clare said he was the first person in his family to finish high school, and the first to finish year 10.
“I remember doing the HSC and thinking, ‘If I don’t get the marks I need to get what I want to do, then my whole life will be ruined’,” he said.
“Turns out it wasn’t true. When I got to university, I realised that you could change courses. You can make up your mind to do different things in life.”
