Meet the former dunces who are winning at life after flunking high school

TEENS across Australia are pulling their hair out over Year 12 exams. These people are proof marks don’t always matter.

Coconut mogul Brynley King gave high school the flick to focus on her business. Picture: Adam Head

AS YOUNG Australians across the nation pull their hair out over Year 12 exams, it’s a time of high anxiety for the up-and-coming generation.

But while getting a high tertiary admission ranking may seem like the deciding factor in a securing a prosperous future, the fork in the road to success and failure is not quite so clear.

We all know someone who blitzed their finals only to go swiftly downhill once unleashed into the “real world”. And those who are struggling academically can take heart from the long list of successful types who flunked, or dropped out, of high school.

Distinguished alumni include Tumblr founder David Karp and Oscar-winning film maker Quentin Tarantino, who both left high school at age 15.

Closer to home, Gold Coast entrepreneur Brynley King ditched Year 12 to focus on what would become a multi-million dollar organic coconut oil business. The 25-year-old and her family are now turning over $6 million a year selling their products internationally. And she’s not alone.

Meet the former dunces who paved their own road to success:

A ‘TYPO’ SAVED MY CAREER

Marcus Pearl is a successful former investment banker who now runs an insurance company.

He’s got an MBA, owns property in Melbourne’s most expensive suburb per square metre, Albert Park, and is running for the local council.

But Mr Pearl has a secret: he flunked Year 12.

Primacy chief executive Marcus Pearl flunked his Year 12 exams. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

The Tasmanian native fled the country after getting a tertiary admission rank of 52.15 — what seemed like a humiliating defeat for a student of the prestigious Melbourne Grammar School, where his classmates were ranked in the high 90s.

“Anything below 99 was frowned upon,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who got lower than I did.”

After a year spent overseas gathering his thoughts, Mr Pearl returned to Australia determined to get a Commerce degree.

“I had to beg my way into TAFE,” he said.

He completed a diploma in lightening speed and managed to get into Deakin University, the only institution that would take him, with a year’s worth of credit from TAFE.

“Once you get into the real world, it doesn’t matter,” Mr Pearl told news.com.au, saying that the most common reaction to his low ranking was one of indifference. But there was a pivotal moment when it could have undone all his hard work.

Having completed his degree while working for an insurance company, Mr Pearl was short-listed for ANZ Bank’s graduate program.

During the interview, he said, he was asked about what the recruiter had assumed was a typo on his CV.

“They thought I’d put in a ‘5’ instead of a ‘9’,” he recalled. It was made clear that, had they realised it was not a mistake, “I would not have been there.”

He blitzed the interview and went on to become one of the bank’s youngest directors at the age of 27, leading a team of commodities traders in Singapore.

Despite having dropped mathematics in Year 12, he worked alongside some of the world’s most brilliant minds on the trading floor, including “a guy who won the Moscow Math Olympiad”.

“No one ever asked about it again,” Mr Pearl, now aged 33, said.

‘NO IDEA HOW I’D PAY IT BACK’

Ramzey Choker remembers being made to feel “really dumb” during his school years, marked by truancy and expulsion from a string of campuses in Sydney’s south before failing his final exams.

While his teachers may have predicted a grim future, Mr Choker found success when he started The Grounds of Alexandria, a game changer for the city’s brunch scene.

Ramzey Choker failed school before co-founding The Grounds of Alexandria. Picture: Simon Bullard.

Billed as an “urban sanctuary”, The Grounds is a foodie haven build into the remnants of a heritage-listed warehouse in Sydney’s inner south.

Its popularity has not waned since doors opened in 2011, with its courtyard packed with customers willing to wait hours for a table on weekends.

Speciality coffee is roasted on site and an 800kg oven churns out loaves of sourdough bread. There’s an organic garden, grocery store and a pen housing farm animals.

But it only came about after Mr Choker lost everything, having ploughed every last dollar into his father’s failing business during the global financial crisis.

Frustrated at having to work for a wage after years spent running cafes, he came up with the idea for The Grounds and presented a 3D render of the project to the land owner.

After borrowing $700,000 from a friend with “no idea how I was going to pay it back”, Mr Choker teamed up with business partner Jack Hanna to build what became an instant success. Projected turnover was exceeded many times over as the business grew in excess of 300 per cent year on year. The business now employs 200 people and Mr Choker has plans to open a school for young entrepreneurs.

While he came out on top, Mr Choker said the mainstream schooling system was failing kids who are not academically bright.

“It has a psychological effect that takes a lot of work and unravelling to move past,” he said.

DOLE QUEUE TO FAST LANE

Ben Harvey admits it’s ironic that his multi-million dollar success centres around an education business.

The 39-year-old entrepreneur ranked “two points above an asterisk” with a tertiary entrance ranking of 37, too low to get into even the most basic university course.

“If you got less than 35, they just gave you an asterisk so as not to embarrass you,” he recalled.

Ben Harvey spent five years on the dole before finding his calling.

Having struggled through school with undiagnosed dyslexia, along with emotional problems from a traumatic childhood, Mr Harvey celebrated his failure as a form of revenge against the system he felt had failed him.

It would be years before the Canberra Grammar School graduate found the tools to turn his life around.

“The traditional style of schooling didn’t suit me and I didn’t find the classes interesting,” Mr Harvey told news.com.au. “I did a lot of sport but I just couldn’t get the academic side of things.”

Things got worse before they got better. Mr Harvey spent more than five years on the dole while battling a serious mental illness.

The turnaround came in 2005, when he got a job in recruitment and started attending personal development courses — maxing out his credit card to spend $17,985 on self education in mindset, psychology, business and presenting skills. But, unlike many seminar junkies, he put the skills he learned into action.

Within a year, he’d started what would quickly evolve into a multi-million dollar coaching business with 13 employees.

Authentic Education was named as Australia’s 35th fastest growing company in the 2015 BRW Fast 100 list, after making the BRW Fast Starters list in 2013.

The catalyst, he said, was simply becoming fed up with his circumstances and deciding to take drastic action to bring about change.

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Originally published as Meet the former dunces who are winning at life after flunking high school