Oscar got exactly what he predicted: band 6s for economics, business studies, advanced maths and biology, a band 5 for advanced English and an E3 score for mathematics extension 1.
He was overjoyed to receive an ATAR of 97.45, which he said blew his expectations of getting a 94 or 95 out of the water.
He felt the happiest seeing his assessment mark – or internal school result – of 95 in economics, which ended up being his second-highest result overall, after advanced maths.
He had almost dropped the subject it to study physics instead, and told himself he would cruise by the first few weeks and not pay too much attention.
Surprisingly, he ended up loving it, and now wants to study economics at the University of Sydney.
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At kitchen benches and on living room lounges across the state, graduating HSC students – and their families – logged on to learn how they had gone in the 2025 HSC.
She may have topped the state in biology and chemistry, but Roseville College’s Stacy Zhang was so nervous she couldn’t look at her ATAR, so she had her friend do it on FaceTime instead.
“I made her look at it first because I was scared,” Stacy said. She shouldn’t have been: Stacy achieved an ATAR of 99.95.
James Ruse Agricultural High School student Terry Chen was more relaxed. After yesterday being announced as the top student in mathematics extension 2, today he slept through his alarm.
Once he got around to checking, he’d received a score of 99.95, which “surpassed” his expectations.
St Aloysius’ College’s Yao Xiao, who topped the English extension 2 course, was “pretty happy” to receive his results.
Terry Chen from James Ruse Agricultural School and Yao Xiao from St Aloysius’ College came first in course in extension 2 maths and extension 2 English, respectively.Credit: Janie Barrett
The talented writer, whose major work was a critical essay about Shakespeare, character development, and genre, also ranked 17th in the state for modern history and scored 49/50 for music extension.
Kempsey High School student Layla Wicks was stunned when she received her marks this morning. Students from her school just don’t get good HSC marks, she was told.
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“It did dishearten me, but I always thought to myself, ‘What if?’,” she said.
Instead, Layla woke up to band 6s in all subjects but one, and an ATAR of 97.65.
“Kids who live in the city get so much more advantage in terms of where they can go to get extra help for their studies,” Kempsey High School executive principal Simon McKinney said.
But not every student was up at 6am to learn their marks.
Like Oscar, Harvey Connolly was also in Inner Sydney High’s first graduating cohort. But at the school’s HSC breakfast on Thursday morning, he admitted he had not checked his results, preferring to wait to share the moment with friends that afternoon.
Whatever his results, he will need to make his celebrations quick: next week he will be on the other side of the world, playing basketball in the US for a month in the hopes of getting scouted by a US college. If successful, he will live there for one year.
Inner Sydney High’s Harvey Connolly had not checked his results when he came to his school’s HSC breakfast on Thursday morning.Credit: Andrew Quilty
“When you play college [basketball], you just eat, sleep, play basketball, repeat – you get so much better from playing college. And hopefully after that, to come back and play pro,” he said.
with Siena Fagan and Frances Howe
Read more of our 2025 HSC coverage