“Year 12 is the best and worst year of your life”
If I had to conclude everything I learnt from the extraordinary learners Q&A with our 2025 graduates in one line, I think that would be the most accurate way to put it. Year 12 was fortunate to have a group of 2025 graduates visit last Friday to share their experiences and journeys after graduation. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s all the advice you need to know.
First things first, the ATAR.
Or more accurately, the myth of it.
One thing that was common among all the graduates was that they all agreed their ATAR was quite unimportant after gaining entry to university, and that gaining entry to uni was actually much easier than they had expected. In their own ways, everyone reflected with much more focus and emphasis on the journey and climb to the HSC than the exams themselves.
Only after receiving their ATAR did they realise that the number was never the point.
The late nights. The Saturdays spent at a desk when you wanted to be at the beach. The weirdly satisfying feeling of finally understanding something that made zero sense two weeks earlier. That was the point. The progress, the experience of learning.
The HSC is often described as a chase. A sprint towards a two-digit ranking. But from the seminar, one thing that was made repeatedly clear is that Year 12 was a training ground. Like a pressure chamber, made for building character.
No employer is ever going to ask you what you got in your Advanced English Assessment Task 1 when you’re 27 (thank goodness). They care about the qualities that you have. How you think, how you recover, how you handle stress without imploding, and your senior year help you build all those skills as you fight to survive.
The ATAR is really just a ticket. Not the whole show. And the diversity of the graduates who spoke, from universities to gap years, shows that if you don’t get to the front door, there’s always a side entrance. Let’s try to see life as less of a straight line and more of a squiggly doodle.
The next major point of advice was “don’t sacrifice your happiness for the HSC”. Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: during HSC season, people change. Stress does that. You’re revising like your life depends on it, living off caffeine and whatever snack is closest to your hand, your sleep schedule is… questionable. One speaker admitted there were moments when they felt their spirit get crushed a bit. Another speaker admitted that they wished they spent more time doing other things, hanging out with their family or going out with their friends. One thing that a lot of us Year 12’s took away is that you should set aside one day a week to completely disassociate from schoolwork and not stress about it at all. For me, that’s Saturdays, where I just don’t touch my schoolwork at all and force myself to be present with the people in my life and my hobbies. If you’re not feeling like yourself, check in. With a friend. A teacher. A parent. A helpline. Anyone. Pride is not worth your mental health. The HSC is important. Your well-being is more important. This is just a reminder that support exists and you’re not weak for using it.
Now let’s talk about the stuff everyone pretends to understand but secretly struggles with – actually studying.
“Work smarter, not harder.”
Easier said than done, right?
One graduate confessed they kept rewriting entirely new notes before exams instead of practising questions and getting those marked. They were exhausting themselves for no reason.
And it didn’t make them better students. It just made them tired.
The trick, apparently, is ruthless efficiency. Recycle good material. Practise under timed conditions. Do past papers – lots of them. Not one. Not two. Do them until the exam format feels boring. You want to go in feeling familiar and predictable. Practice questions are not optional. They are the gym reps of academia.
And finally, maybe the most important thing said all morning:
Your mark does not determine your self-worth.
We live in a culture that loves numbers. Rankings. Percentiles. Cut-offs. It’s easy to internalise them. To let them define you.
But your value is not a statistic.
You can mess up an exam and still be brilliant, whatever you define that as. You can miss a band by one mark and still be capable of extraordinary things. You can get an ATAR lower than expected and still build a life you love.
So, to the younger grades reading this and to my fellow class of 2026, Year 12 will stretch us. It will frustrate us. It will probably make us cry at least once (sorry, but true). It will test your time management in ways other grades may have never preparedyou forr.
But it will also sharpen you.
You’ll learn how to fall and stand back up. You’ll learn how to study even when you’re tired. You’ll probably learn who your real friends are at 10:47 pm the night before a trial.
It’s allegedly the best and worst year. Both can be true.
One day, you’ll walk out of your final exam. And you’ll realise you climbed the mountain after all, even if you slipped a few times on the way up.
So, practise. Do the past papers. Plan your time. Protect your happiness. Go for a run. Build something. Help someone. Get back up when you fall.
And whatever number flashes on that screen in December? Remember who you were before it. And who you’re becoming beyond it.
