HSC results 2024: Girls earned the most high achiever titles

Nearly 42,000 “distinguished achiever” titles were awarded to the class of 2024 with the majority awarded to female students – here’s what the numbers tell us.

Female firepower has seen the girls eclipse the boys in dominating the HSC merit list, claiming 56 per cent of the “distinguished achiever” titles for scoring 90 marks or more in one or more subjects.

Nearly 42,000 “distinguished achiever” titles were awarded to almost 19,600 Year 12 (and accelerated Year 11) students for Band 6 results, with female students accounting for over 23,500 of those and male students making up around 18,200.

However the gender divide became apparent in the most advanced English and mathematics courses.

For English Extension 2379 girls achieved a Band 6 compared to 122 boys, while more than 1000 boys achieved Band 6s in mathematics extension 2 compared to fewer than 400 girls.

Sydney Girls High School had the highest number of students achieve a Band 6 in English extension 1 with 42 students while girls’ school Kambala Rose Bay had 17 students gain top marks in English extension 2.

Pymble Ladies College, Hwayoung Cho, Visual Arts Abigail Barfield, Aboriginal studies Caiyi Wang, Chinese Continues Mulan Xu, Classical Greek Continuers, at the HSC First in Course ceremony, at UNSW. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Co-educational school James Ruse Agricultural High School had the most distinguished achievers in both maths extension 1 and extension 2, with 127 and 96 in each subjects respectively.

Single-sex institutions were over-represented at the top of the leaderboard, accounting for more than half of the top 100 schools despite making up just 17.5 per cent of the 686 secondary schools listed.

More than one in three of the top schools were female-only institutions while only 19 were boys’ schools and the remaining 45 coeducational.

Pictured at North Sydney Boys High School are 2024 graduated students Lloyd Yang , Bowen Wu, Tharun Bandara and Ethan Du who all achieved an ATAR of 99.95. Picture: Richard Dobson

Five boys’ schools were included in the top ten, including table-leader North Sydney Boys High School, where principal Brian Ferguson said that there are “advantages” in being an all-boys school.

“I think there’s advantages and complexities in any school you teach in,” he said.

“The greatest thing that I’ve seen – in both (co-ed and single-sex) settings – is looking after our high-performing, gifted students.

“In our setting, we’re able to tailor our curriculum to meet the needs of the boys particularly, and I found that as an advantage.

“I think fundamentally, just in the public education system, that we’re very fortunate that we have a diversity of schools to be able to cater for a diversity of students.”

Just seven comprehensive public schools fought their way into the top 100 secondary schools in the state – and the best of them are only for boys or girls.

Willoughby Girls High School, ranked 55th overall, topped the short list and was followed closely by fellow single-sex schools Cheltenham Girls High School in Beecroft (ranked 57th), Epping Boys High School (60th) and Northern Beaches Secondary College’s Balgowlah Boys Campus (64th).

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