It was an early start for Kustiani Tuckerman on Friday morning who got up in the early hours of the morning to check her Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).
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The Gunnedah High School student is on holiday in Indonesia, which is four hours behind Australia. The time difference meant that instead of being able to check her ATAR at 9am as she would in Australia, she was up with 5am, battling with limited WiFi.
Despite poor reception, Kustiani succeeded and said she felt “relieved” when she checked both her HSC results and ATAR.
“My results were pretty good. [They were] consistent,” she said.
“I went very well in business studies and english as well as maths.
“[I feel] a sense of personal satisfaction knowing I could get into my course on my own marks even without early entry.”
Kustiani received an early entry offer for environmental civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wollongong and will be heading off in 2018.
Her good friend and fellow former school captain, Jaxon Holbrook, was in bed when he checked his ATAR and said he "went back to sleep” because he was more focused on his HSC results, which were released on Thursday.
“I’m really happy with my raw marks so I didn’t really care what ATAR I got because I already got into uni,” he said.
“I did really well in art – I got a band 5, and then I got band 4s for english and retail.”
Jaxon now faces the choice of university offers for degrees including art, business and tourism and communications. He changed his preferences on UAC three weeks ago to include a a commerce and business degree at the University of Newcastle.
“I’m leaning towards that one at the moment,” he said.
Once Jaxon has decided on his course, he will defer until 2019 and work in Gunnedah in 2018.
If Jaxon’s reaction to his ATAR was understated, Annerley Fitzsimmons’ was theatrical.
The St Mary’s College student said she was ecstatic when she saw her ATAR of 93.45.
“I almost threw my phone through the roof,” she said.
“I had to go and find it, and then I rang everyone to tell them [the news].”
Unlike some Year 12 students, Annerley did not need a high ATAR to get into a Bachelor of Early Childhood and Primary School Education. She was more concerned with her HSC results because she needed a band 5 or above in english plus a band 5 or above in two other subjects to get accepted.
Annerley achieved four band 6s and three band 5s, so she is well and truly in the clear and will be heading off to the University of New England next year.
Jaxon said now that all the waiting was over, it was “pretty non-climatic”.
“It’s just really weird – you do 13 years of schooling and you just get a number [at the end],” he said.
Annerley echoed his sentiments and said “it just wasn’t what I expected”.
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