West Australian high school graduates have logged in to find out their ATAR results and for 18 students, opening them held an additional surprise – the highest possible score of 99.95.
In what is believed to be a first for the state, it was only boys who made the list.
Ethan Widjaja and John Peiris, from Perth Modern, Aarnav Goradia, from Duncraig Senior High School and Chenyu Wang, from Christ Church Grammar School.
Aarnav Goradia, from Duncraig Senior High School, was one of the 18. He also received the Dux award at his school.
“I actually thought the results were released Monday, and then I got a message from my group chat with friends telling me they were out,” he said.
“I called one of my friends and we opened our results on the phone together.”
Aarnav said his family had been having a nap at the time, and he had rushed to wake them up. “I was yelling out and I don’t think they believed me at first – mum had to take a few looks at the computer screen,” he said.
“She was in tears and very happy and proud of me.”
Although Aarnav is hoping to study medicine next year at the University of Western Australia, Melbourne University or Curtin University, he said he had only decided that at the beginning of year 12.
“Initially, I wanted to do something in sport, become a professional badminton player – I have represented WA,” he said.
“I had to stop playing during year 12 because of study commitments but I’m excited to get back into it next year.”
Aarnav said even though he had stopped badminton, he had joined a gym at Hillarys Boat Harbour with some friends to unwind, and said he would spend around six hours a week there during his final year at school.
“They also have a pretty great Nandos,” he said. “I would tell next the next year 12 intake to find a way to balance your time between study and other activities to optimise your state of mind.”
John Peiris, from Perth Modern, agreed. He also made the list of 18 students to score 99.95.
“Keeping up with extracurriculars is an important thing to do in year 12, I think a lot of the high-achieving students do have a good balance,” he said.
“If you only focus on ATAR then you’ll burn out. It’s not sustainable.”
John spent a lot of time in year 12 playing the violin in four community orchestras and volunteering to help out at robotics competitions.
He opened his ATAR results after a music concert on Saturday night. His mother and brother were with him, and his father joined on a video call.
“Mum was freaking out, she was ecstatic. My brother was really supportive and dad was happy too,” he said. “I have always had a good ATAR prediction but the final results are always really uncertain.”
John said his favourite subject had been mathematics specialist because “every exam was different and there was always new puzzles to solve.” John hopes to study medicine next year.
Ethan Widjaja, also from Perth Modern, agreed that mathematics specialist, or ancient history, was the best subject.
“I was in the middle of a computer game when I heard results were out. I was quite surprised that I got that score,” he said.
“I’m very happy, and my family is too, it’s really big for all of us. ATAR is competitive, but I would say just do it to the best of your ability and don’t listen to outside noise.”
Ethan is planning to study mechanical engineering at the University of Melbourne next year.
Vivaan Wagh, from Hale School.
Vivaan Wagh, from Hale School, discovered results were out while playing cricket, but he wanted to wait until he was home with his family before checking.
“Mum was pretty happy, she was jumping with joy, and dad called me and he couldn’t even get words out,” he said.
“It was a relief to know the work I had done had paid off. Year 12 was definitely stressful compared to previous years – I’m normally good at managing stress but the nerves were running high in year 12.”
Vivaan agreed it was important to not “bury yourself in school” to succeed. He joins the list hoping to study medicine at either UWA or Curtin University next year.
Chenyu Wang, from Christ Church Grammar School, said he felt “surprised and relieved” as he hadn’t anticipated getting the perfect score and was “continuously thinking about what result I would get.”
“My mother was the first to open my results. I was too nervous to open it by myself,” he said.
Chenyu had some different advice from the others and said, while it was different for everyone, he recommended minimising distractions like social media, computer games and “excessive socialising”, to focus entirely on studies.
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