General News
22 December, 2024
Horsham's rising stars
Year 12 students have finished their final year on a high after their VCE results were released last Thursday.
Close to 76,000 students sat exams with nearly 47,500 completing their VCE.
The average tertiary admission rank (ATAR) was 69.52, up from the average last year of 69.41 with 41 students achieving the highest possible rank of 99.95, up from 39 last year.
Horsham's Holy Trinity Lutheran College's DUX went to Rebekah Wundke, who finished Year 12 on a high receiving an impressive ATAR of 99.
"I'm very relieved but very proud of myself," she said.
"I always knew it was going to be a hard year. I enjoyed it and worked hard."
Rebekah completed English, Math Methods, General Maths, Biology and Psychology and did Health and Human Development last year.
She received a perfect study score of 50 in biology and plans to study speech pathology in Adelaide.
Following behind her was Cameron Briteo-Mutunayagan who received an ATAR of 98.85.
"I'm very happy with the result," he said.
"It was a good year, there were some bumps in the road, but we made it to the end."
Cameron studied English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math Methods in Year 12 and completed Health last year.
He said he will go straight into university and has applied to multiple facilities to study medicine.
Sean McDonald has been named St Brigid's 2024 Dux as he finishes with an ATAR of 89.5.
Sean said he feels "good" about his result.
"It's not the best, but it's still high," he said.
This year saw Sean take Math Methods, Chemistry, Physics and English Language with hopes to enter the engineering field.
Sean has plans to take a gap year and travel, and then commence studying civil engineering at Monash University.
Horsham College's DUX went to Lucy Scott who finished her schooling journey with an ATAR of 95.8, something she was not expecting.
"I was very surprised and quite shocked," she said.
"But I'm very happy and there may have been a few tears."
Lucy is planning on moving to Adelaide next year, where she will study a Bachelor of Business at the University of South Australia.
"I'm excited to explore and see what it will bring," she said.
She also added that she will be living in residential university accommodation.
Lucy undertook English, Psychology, Health and Legal Studies.
All students prepared for their exams by completing many practice exams alongside some different techniques.
Sean said he "crammed" what he could.
Rebekah made sure she has notes and cue cards set out for each subject.
"I revised my notes continuously," she said.
Cameron said he also used online resources that were made available to him to help him study.
"I got feedback from my teachers and past students, who are familiar with the subject," he said.
Lucy said she revised each subject in small amounts so avoid overloading.
"For English I did an essay a day and studied in the exam time frame," she said.
They all gave sound advice to those heading into their final year of school next year, with the main point made is to enjoy the year.
"It's going to be a challenging year, so find the right motivation that works for you," Rebekah said.
Cameron said to enjoy as you go and "ramp up the study near the end".
"There's a lot of exciting things that will happen," Lucy said.
Sean's advice was to "not cram everything until the end".
"Keep on top of everything, instead of waiting until the last minute," he said.
"Don't push yourself too hard and rest when you need it."