‘I never expected to do this well’: top performing NSW students celebrate high-flying Atars

Shore student Charlie Ashton, who is one of 48 students to receive a near-perfect 2023 Atar result of 99.90. Photograph: Shore School

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.