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Akina Li trembled with anxiety on Friday morning as she counted down the minutes and seconds until her ATAR appeared on the screen. The 18-year-old Pymble Ladies College student from Eastwood was hoping for 99.95 to secure her chances of getting into medicine at the University of Sydney.
She has wanted to be a doctor or dentist since she was three, and in recent years set her sights on neurosurgery. The moments Akinaâs computer took to load her result were brief but agonising. Then she and her mother burst into tears.
Akina Li and her mother, Ying Liu, react as Akina gets her 99.95 ATAR result.
â[I] miss the HSC, and I miss school, and even the exam. The exams are obviously in a sense horrific, but at least thereâs something to work towards, itâs always there, itâs looming, youâve always got something to do. Then itâs like, what do I do now?
âMy parents are pretty excited, they are a bit hysterical.â
Of 126 awards, 48 went to students at public schools and TAFEs, 32 went to students from specialist language schools, seven were from Catholic systemic schools and 39 were from independent schools.
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Seven students topped more than one subject, including Akina Li from Pymble Ladies College who finished first in Latin extension 1 and English extension 1, and Chae-Weon Lee from the Conservatorium High, who topped German beginners and music extension.