NOT everyone would have enjoyed juggling four major works for the Higher School Certificate, but Alexandra Addis relished it.
"It meant I had very little that I was doing that I didn't enjoy doing and I got to really guide what I was studying in the direction I wanted to," she said of her major works for Society and Culture, English Extension 2, History Extension and Visual Arts.
"In the time a lot of other people were stressing I wouldn't have been, but in the time other people wouldn't have been stressing I would have been... it was the best route to go down for me. I really wanted to see the projects to completion because I really loved doing them, so it was fairly easy to stay motivated, seeing them grow."
The Hunter Valley Grammar School student was rewarded with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank [ATAR] of 97.6. "It feels pretty good," she said.
"I did just really enjoy the last year... it's good to see it all come to a useful and positive end that closes it all out quite nicely."
Alexandra, 18, is one of many across the region waiting for the Universities Admissions Centre's first round of ATAR based offers, to be released at 7.30am on December 22.
She hopes to gain entry to a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, but said she will likely defer this and take a gap year to build her portfolio.
She will decide at the end of next year whether to pursue the degree or a fine arts qualification.
"[Arts is] an umbrella for everything I'd want to study... my main considerations would be English literature, art history or anthropology."
Alexandra said she was not feeling too stressed about the offers.
"I did not even know they were coming out this early, so I'm pretty relaxed," she said.
"Given I'm taking a gap year I've got plenty of time to think about things and try again if I don't get in."
All Saints' College St Mary's Campus Maitland student William Davies is also feeling calm ahead of what he hopes will be an offer to study aerospace engineering at the University of Newcastle.
"I think it should be alright," he said.
"I only really considered what I wanted to do recently leading up to the HSC, looking through all the courses engineering took my interest and then aerospace seemed interesting."
He was in New Zealand with his family driving from Dunedin to Queenstown when he received his HSC results by email and his ATAR of 98.8 online.
"I was very happy with it," he said.
"I read them out to [my family] and it was good, they were proud and happy. We went out for dinner that night and we also did a canyon swing."
William was an All Round Achiever, which means he achieved results in the highest band possible for at least 10 units. He said he worked consistently throughout the year but "stepped it up a bit more closer to the HSC".
"The weeks before and in the HSC I worked pretty hard, I basically turned the holidays into school days, structured my days so I would do two hours of work then a break, then two hours of work," he said.
"I was working for a 95 plus ATAR but in terms of marks in specific subjects I did not really have any goals, I was just aiming for band sixes."
He said he was also hoping to beat his older sister and father's ATARs.
"My family has always been pretty good academically and I'm a bit competitive," he said. "[Trumping them] was good but I am not rubbing it in too much or anything!"
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