Meet every student who got 99.95 in the 2025 HSC

2 months ago 5

Students from four Sydney selective public schools have taken out more than half of the top ATAR ranks awarded to this year’s HSC students.

While North Sydney Boys claimed the top spot in this year’s HSC school rankings, its rival, James Ruse Agricultural High School, came out on top on another metric: nine of its students received ATARs of 99.95 on Thursday, the most of any school.

Seven students at North Sydney Boys took home the maximum score.

Terry Chen, Nina Chen, Selina Ma, Nikil Andepalli, Peter Shan and Srihaas Komminni.

Baulkham Hills High School had six students achieve top ATARs, while three students at North Sydney Girls received a 99.95.

Girls claimed 19 of the 53 maximum ATARs awarded this year, significantly narrowing the gender divide between top-scoring students. In 2024, just nine of the 51 top ranks awarded that year went to girls.

Last year, the Herald attributed the gap between boys and girls to the positive “scaling” of maths and science subjects, which tend to attract more male students.

But Roseville College graduate Sophie Firek beat the odds this year, claiming the coveted 99.95 ATAR with a course load dominated by the humanities.

Placing first in the state for legal studies, she also took English advanced, modern history, and economics. In addition, she took three-unit mathematics, but that did not end up counting towards her ATAR.

“I do all humanities, so everyone always told me you can’t get a really good ATAR if you don’t do science and maths, so I never thought I would get this,” Sophie said.

Sophie Firek, who received a first in course award for legal studies, and Stacy Zhang, who was first for both biology and chemistry.

Her classmate Stacy Zhang also scored an ATAR of 99.95 after topping the state in biology and chemistry.

Violinist and Meriden School student Selina Wang placed first in the state for music advanced and music extension, but she never expected to also come away with a 99.95 ATAR.

Meriden student Selina Wang, who topped both music extension and music 2, achieved the top ATAR of 99.95.

“These results are beyond anything I had imagined,” Selina said. “I almost started crying. I didn’t expect it at all.”

Academically selective Sydney Grammar School took out six of the top ATARs, the most of any private school.

Sydney Grammar student Jaden Gargya achieved an ATAR of 99.95, excelling in Latin and French languages. He also received a state rank in English advanced.

“At Grammar, they teach language from the ground up. It is like building a tower ... with a shaky base, the tower will fall. You need a strong foundation,” he said.

Jaden was surprised to learn of his results. “My hands were shaking when I got the news … when I state ranked for English. I think the main takeaway was, no matter what it is, if you work hard, you’ll do well.”

Presbyterian Ladies’ College student Jio Yim was one of two students at her school who landed a 99.95 ATAR, which will get her into medicine at the University of Sydney – something she said she had not even “allowed” herself to hope for.

“Medicine [at the University of Sydney] is what I was shooting for. But I honestly did not think I would get this ATAR,” she said.

Jio said she and the school’s other 99.95 student, Emma Zhang, had been “study buddies” since year 7, and helped each other excel academically.

North Sydney Boys student Jiaao Jay Chen knew 99.95 was a special rank, but he said, in complete honesty, he would have been happy regardless of the result.

“I know it is meant to be special, but I don’t think too much about it … I am happy because I gave it my all in my exams,” he said.

Overall, 32 of the students who received a 99.95 ATAR attended academically selective public or private schools. The remaining 21 students attended other private schools. No student at a comprehensive public school received the top rank.

With Emily Kowal, Siena Fagan, Christopher Harris and Cindy Yin