HSC 2023: Distinguished Achievers, Top Achievers and All Rounders named

They are the cream of the crop of 2023 – an elite cohort of students who hit the mark across multiple subjects and were named on the merit lists. Use our searchable interactives to see who made the cut.

All Rounders Stephanie Catania, Dora Abici, Katherine Baker and Simone Tanna from Our Lady of Mercy College at North Parramatta. Picture: Rohan Kelly

They are the cream of the crop of 2023 – an elite cohort of students who hit the mark across multiple subjects, managing to score well regardless of the subject.

These high flying students come from a wide range of schools - public, private, selective and non-selective – but the data reveals some schools dominate the honours with big clusters of exceptionally bright students.

And it’s not necessarily the well-known schools who have long-established reputations for HSC rankings, with some surprise upsets in the list.

Crunching the students and schools who appear in the “All-Round Achievers” List and the “Distinguished Achievers” List reveals boys’ selective schools out-performing girls’ selective schools - and boys’ private schools outdoing girls’ private schools.

All up, 1410 genius students made the All Rounder List, while 18,516 – out of a total 68,689 students on track to complete their HSC this year - made the Distinguished Achievers List.

And the most competitive list of all – the “Top Achievers” List – has 879 students this year. Those students had to have placed in the top 20 for subjects with more than 10,000 students, or the top five in subjects with smaller enrolments, such as some languages.

To make the incredibly competitive All-Round Achievers List, the student has to achieve the highest possible band in 10 or more units of study – quite a feat considering they have to do well regardless of the subject matter.

And for the Distinguished Achievers, the bar to get onto the honour roll is to achieve a result in the highest possible band in one or more courses.

Of all the schools in NSW, North Sydney Boys managed to do exceptionally well on the All Round Achievers List, sharing top honours this year with James Ruse with both fielding 66 students on the list.

That compares with 39 from North Sydney Girls.

Premier Chris Minns at Blakehurst High School to mark the release of HSC results. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The private boys school Knox came next, with 56 students. One of those exceptionally bright boys was Jacob Johnstone, who managed to make the elite Top Achievers list, snaring an extraordinary first in English Extension 1, a first in Legal Studies, a second in Economics, a sixth in Ancient History and a seventh in Visual Arts.

Despite snaring an extraordinary haul of honours, Jacob, 18, from Mona Vale says his results are “humbling”.

“I was just humbled by my mark, I didn’t fully expect it - I’m just so grateful for everything that everyone’s done for me,” he said.

“All the credit goes to my wonderful teaching staff at Knox and my family who have supported me through this year - it’s a tough journey but so rewarding.”

Jacob says he wasn’t actually “the keenest student if I’m being perfectly honest” in his younger years, especially with literature.

“I rarely read books when I was young – but by the time I got to Year 9 I had some wonderful English teachers and some wonderful art teachers and they completely revolutionised my outlook. They helped me take a deep dive into things, in texts in English, the current events in Legal, the rich history of Australian art. It just changed my mindset and I enjoyed learning.”

Knox Grammar student Jacob Johnstone excelled at several subjects in the HSC. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

As for next year, he’s thinking of perhaps studying for an arts/law degree.

“I don’t know where that will take me but I’m definitely interested in the area of area of advocacy and representing the community.”

Another extraordinarily gifted student – Jeremy Wong from Sydney Grammar – who made it onto the Top Achievers List - managed to get firsts in the state in Classical Greek, Latin and a second in Mathematics Advanced. He said he was extremely happy with his results and has plans to study law and head overseas for holidays – then come back in January and learn another language for fun.

“I love studying and I really like self-learning languages,” Jeremey said. “My parents thought I’d get a solid result so they were very happy – and I was overwhelmed with it all.”

Normanhurst Boys High, a public selective school, managed to get 31 boys on the list – while Asquith Girls High got 1 on the list.

Co-ed public selective school Baulkham Hills High had an incredible 54 students who got the highest band in 10 units or more.

Over at Sydney Boys High, in Surry Hills, 29 students were All Round Achievers, compared with 15 at the neighbouring Sydney Girls High.

And the non-selective private Reddam House at Woollhara stood out with 33 All Round Achievers.

The non-selective Barker College also performed well snaring 21 students on the list and Smiths Hill High in Wollongong punched above its weight with 12.

In the Top Achiever list, apart from the NSW School of Languages which secured 42 students a spot with a diverse lot of languages – Sydney Grammar at Darlinghurst blitzed it, with 41 students. They were followed by James Ruse on 26 and Knox on 24, closely followed by Pymble Ladies College on 21.

An analysis of the results of the second honour roll – the “Distinguished Achievers” List, reveals Knox fielding the most – with 343 students, followed by Baulkham Hills High on 234, Barker College on 229, Sydney Boys on 241 and James Ruse on 204.

At Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, Ella Curran managed to get the highest band possible for eight subjects.

Jeremy Wong landed in the highest band for eight subjects. Picture: Richard Dobson

Other top performers landing the highest band for eight subjects included Darshanik Aryal at James Ruse, William Jones and Jeremy Wong at Sydney Grammar, Guanyu Zhu at North Sydney boys, Chris Yoo at Kings and Aaron Yuen at North Sydney Boys.

In the country, the faith schools did very well.

Larissa Smyth at Calrossy Anglican in Tamworth managed the feat of getting the top band in seven subjects as did Hannah Cappe from Trinity Catholic College Lismore, Max Kielly at Nowra Anglican College, Lorena Dionigi at St Joseph’s Regional College in Port Macquarie and Arianwen Dastoor at All Saints College in Maitland.