Geelong High School’s Lily West was hoping for a decent result from her work through year 12, but never expected to be dux.
Despite feeling less than confident after the exam period, Lily scored 49 for history, 47 in English, 38 in both physics and visual communication design, 35 for theatre studies and 32 for mathematical methods to top her school with an ATAR of 97.65.
“I wasn’t expecting that high because I thought that I’d done poorly on some of the exams, but obviously not, in the end,” Lily said.
“So I was pretty happy to get that number. I was expecting maybe at most 94 or something, so 97 was pretty high based on what I was expecting.”
Stress wasn’t a big problem for Lily outside periods of heavy workload, but she knew she had to manage a tendency to procrastinate.
“I’m definitely the sort of person who gets distracted and leaves things to the last minute,” she said.
“And I sort of knew that coming into the year, so I worked ahead on my subjects so that if I did fall behind I would just be less far ahead.”
Lily, who hopes to study history and write plays in the future, said participating in the school’s production of Alice by Heart helped her balance study with a social life, thanking her friends and teachers for keeping her on track.
“My teachers are all really good and they were supportive of my work ethic, always providing me with support if I had trouble with content,” she said.
