It’s topped the HSC for 25 years, so why are students rejecting James Ruse?

Almost a third of the students offered a place at the state’s highest-achieving school, James Ruse Agricultural High, turn it down.

In its 2021-24 improvement plan, the Carlingford school – which has topped NSW in the HSC for 25 years – has set itself a goal of having 75 per cent of its placement offers accepted by 2024. This year, its goal is to have 68 per cent of students accepting their offer.

So far this year, 27 year 6 students have rejected offers for spots at Ruse, compared with just 10 for Baulkham Hills High, which has two more 30-strong year 7 classes than Ruse’s four, and just seven for Penrith High, which has one more class than Ruse.

Billie Lane received a selective school offer but took a private school scholarship instead.Credit: Edwina Pickles

James Ruse’s principal, Rachel Powell, said she was unsure why the refusal rate is relatively higher for Ruse - families don’t have to provide a reason - but suspects it is partly due to misconceptions that the school is a high-pressure ATAR factory.

Another potential factor is that private schools offer their scholarships, which must be locked in with a deposit, before selective school offers are released. Students who gain entry to James Ruse are also likely to have done well in the private school scholarship exams.

Ms Powell said she started at the school three years ago. “When I got the figures, I was absolutely dumbfounded. I just assumed everyone would take their places,” she said.

She talked to students, parents and teachers to try to find out why - people who refuse their place don’t have to give a reason - “and we came to the conclusion that people don’t really understand Ruse,” Ms Powell said.

“They have an image and stereotype that Ruse is an ATAR [Australian Tertiary Entrance Rank] factory, and it’s so much more than that. It was a desire for us as a school to really put the real side of Ruse out there, so people are making a decision based on fact rather than fiction.”

The school has an extensive co-curricular program, cadets and a proud sporting record, Ms Powell said. Agriculture is compulsory, a subject many graduates remember with fondness from their time at the school.

Transport can also put parents off - the school is in a traffic-logged suburban street in Carlingford - so Ms Powell has published transport routes on the school website.

“I meet with the year 7s every year, in term three, and ask them in small groups what they like about coming to Ruse,” she said. “It’s very strong that they love the other students, they feel they have people who understand them.”

Every year, James Ruse sends out 140 offers for a year group of 120 students, to factor in the refusals.

Under the selection process run by the NSW Department of Education, students can name three selective schools in their application in order of preference, and receive an offer to the highest one for which they qualify.

James Ruse usually has the highest minimum-entry score. It also offers fewer year 7 places than most selective schools; there are four classes of 30, compared with six at Sydney Boys High, five at Fort Street and five at Sydney Tech.

James Ruse tops the HSC 2020.Credit: Nigel Gladstone

If they refuse their offer, they do not get another offer for a lower-preference school.

This year the NSW Department of Education is publishing a reserve list for each school. So far this year, the refusal rate is highest in partially selective schools, and lowest - at about five per cent - at North Sydney Boys’, Penrith and Baulkham Hills.

Billie Lane, a sporty, academic student at Turramurra Public, sat for the selective school test in March. But she was also offered a full scholarship at Barker College. Her parents paid the $5000 deposit - refundable at the end of her schooling - before Billie was offered a place in the selective stream at Chatswood High and a place on the Hornsby Girls’ reserve list.

“I felt that the selective schools seem to have kind of a reputation for being quite high pressure environments, students being coached outside the classroom, and I’m not sure how healthy that would be for me,” she said.

“I also love soccer and running and exercising, and I wanted to attend a school where sport was valued as much as academic work.”

A spokeswoman for the NSW Department of Education said the number of enrolment offers at selective schools was specific to the school and based on the pattern of past declines, so some made no extra offers and others up to 20.

“The simple tally of declination of offers does not mean that the school is less popular than schools with fewer declines,” she said. “The number of declination of offers for NSW selective high schools with 120-plus Year 7 intake range from 12 to 47.”

The spokeswoman also said that the later the offer is made, the more likely it is that parents have already organised their children’s high schooling and so turn the place down.

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