KERANG dux students Brylie Shepard and Daniel Veloso were both shocked when they were told the news on Thursday.
The respective Kerang Christian College and Kerang Technical High School top achievers scored the highest Australian Tertiary Admission Rank amongst their Year 12 VCE peers.
Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre said the ATAR was not a score out of 100 – it is a rank.
It shows a student’s achievement in relation to other students.
The ATAR is calculated by VTAC solely for the use of tertiary institutions to compare the overall achievement of students who have completed different combinations of VCE studies.
Brylie didn’t disclose her score, but said she was “shocked” to hear the news from the principal.
“I didn’t think it was coming my way,” she said.
“It was a major surprise when I got the phone call.”
Brylie studied English, two mathematics subjects, Health, Psychology and Food.
“I want to do primary teaching, ideally I would like to do something in the psychology aspect and kind of involve that in primary teaching,” she said.
“I wanted to be a primary school teacher since the day I could talk really, and I liked the idea of helping kids … watching them go through year-by-year.”
Brylie hoped to study primary teaching at La Trobe University in Bendigo next year.
She said the biggest challenge was understanding the frequency of studying.
“I had a mindset that I had to study, study, study,” Brylie, who also worked at a pizza shop, said.
“I kind of had a realisation that I actually don’t need to.
“I can balance it out like I think that was probably the best thing that I did.”
Brylie said all her examinations were impacted by the blunder that revealed the questions to VCE exams ahead of time.
“It was a bit of an anxious time,” she said. “Not knowing what was going to happen.”
Living on a beef and cropping farm 15 minutes out of the Kerang township forced Brylie to distract herself away from the books.
For Daniel, he was more concerned about his ranking than being named the school’s dux.
He topped his peers with a score of 92.25, with subjects including English, Mathematical Methods, History-Revolutions and VET Cookery. He studied Physics and General Mathematics in Year 11 as a VCE subject.
Daniel said he would study environmental engineering at The University of Melbourne next year, with a scholarship securing him accommodation on campus.
He said the biggest challenge was completing multiple subjects online without a face-to-face teacher.
“My advice is to study and be consistent about it,” Daniel said.
“You don’t have to spend hours every day, but just a little bit to be consistent.”
City life was yet to dawn on Daniel.
“I think there’s a bit too many people compared to Kerang,” he said.
