By Mary Ward, Pallavi Singhal, Natassia Chrysanthos and Sian Brain
As Pymble Ladies College student Isabel Crosby waited for her HSC marks on Tuesday morning, her mother, Dorothy, laughed that it felt like she, too, was coming to the end of an era.
"Isabel is my fourth to go through this process," she said. "It's the end of 27 years of education for me."
Isabel Crosby receiving her HSC results on Tuesday morning.Credit: Nick Moir
The pair were up with the sunrise at their Pymble apartment on Tuesday morning, logging onto the NESA website in Isabel's bedroom at 6am to receive the results.
Isabel, who turns 18 next week, received an early birthday present. With a band 4 in advanced English, band 5s in biology, legal studies and music 1, and a band 6 in standard mathematics, she said she did "a lot better than [she] expected".
“It took me a second to realise what it meant because it was just a bunch of numbers,” Isabel laughed after reading her results. The marks should see her easily achieve her first preference university course: a combined degree in primary education and psychology at Macquarie University.
“I’ve wanted to be a primary teacher since I was five or six,” she said. “I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
About 75,000 students received their HSC results online or through a text message on Tuesday, learning how they fared in their final academic year at secondary school.
Actor Trystan Go, known for portraying a young Benjamin Law in SBS's The Family Law, said he was "feeling nervous" and put off looking at his results until late morning.
"I was very pleased," said the St Andrew's Cathedral School captain, who plans to study commerce at Sydney or UNSW ("whichever one will take me"). He came away with top band marks in drama, music 2 and music extension, as well as an invitation to perform his classical voice piece at the Encore showcase for high-achieving HSC music students.
"I got through the year by being very organised," he said. "I had a lot of sleep, used my school diary religiously, and I had a really good network around me at school, and a really supportive family."
Although Go, 18, "took a bit of break from acting" during his HSC year, he did find the time to star in his school's production of Fiddler on the Roof . He was on a plane to the Gold Coast shortly after his final exam, not for schoolies, but to film scenes for Occupation: Rainfall, set to be released in 2020.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said nearly 1450 HSC students had received the All Round Achievers Award for getting the highest possible band in 10 units of study.
Among them was Arndell Anglican College's Muir McLennan, who is the first person at his school to receive the honour, as well as the first to top the state in a subject.
Muir, 18, woke at 4am and “couldn’t get back to sleep” as he waited for the rest of his scores to come out after finding out he had received the state's top mark in society and culture.
“I doubted myself throughout the whole thing,” Muir said. “But [my family] all knew because I put so much into it.”
Cranbrook student Jesse Caminer managed a top band in every one of the 12 units of languages he studied for his HSC, coming first in the state in three subjects: English advanced, English extension 2 and Chinese continuers. He achieved the highest possible ATAR of 99.95.
"It’s a very overwhelming release of 12 months of anxiety and stress and happiness and sadness," he said. He is hoping to study medieval languages at Cambridge, then pursue a career in diplomacy or academia.
Ms Mitchell said: ''HSC students right across NSW should be feeling very proud of themselves this morning because, regardless of their results, they have come to the end of a very challenging year and now it is time to start thinking about what lies ahead.''
Year 12 leavers took to social media to share their joy, surprise and, at times, disappointment as they logged on to view their marks.
For the first time, students eligible for the ATAR received their ranks on the same day as their HSC results, with ranks available on the UAC website on Tuesday afternoon.