COVID-19 meant a chaotic year for the graduating class of 2021, as students dealt with an unprecedented amount of stress and disruptions whilst preparing for their final exams.
Early university offers have flowed over the past month, coming as a huge relief to students as they entered their final exams and now await their ATAR and results.
The negative mental impact COVID-19 has had on HSC students is immense, as students were forced to learn from home during their most critical preparation period.
Students who have received early offers at St Pauls Catholic College Greystanes said it kept them calm heading into exams.
18-year-old student Joel Incognito has received six offers across Macquarie University, Australian Cathoic University (ACU), Western Sydney University (WSU) and University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in fields relating to commerce, business and human science.
“Receiving the offers took heaps of pressure off and having such a variety of offers to choose from also really allowed me to stress less, having that security moving into the exams,” he said.
“This year has been a huge challenge; studying and learning from home and trying to stay motivated. You really had to be disciplined.”
Fellow student, 18-year-old Geetansh Kaushal, received three early offers from UTS, Macquarie University and WSU all for Civil Engineering.
“The early offer really took the stress off to perform in the exam and now that I reflect on it, it actually made me more efficient, as there was less pressure going into the exams,” he said.
“I wanted to finish off the best that I could and it really, if anything, made me focus more on the content rather than the mark itself.”
Universities experienced an exponential increase of applications to the Schools Recommendation Scheme (SRS) and other early offer programs.
WSU’s True Rewards program provided students impacted by COVID-19 with the choice and flexibility of being able to use their Year 11 results to gain entry.
Over 9000 HSC True Reward early offers to study with WSU in 2022 have been made, with more still to come.
St Pauls Catholic College Greystanes in pre-COVID 2019 had 23 students apply for the Schools Recommendation Scheme (SRS).
In response to the uncertainty about HSC exams and the disruptions caused by remote learning, this year the school had 51 students apply.
HSC Students are set to receive their ATAR on January 20 and results on January 24.
Troy Dodds is Parra News' Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia’s leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.