Ranked world’s top achievers
THE recent New South Wales Higher School Certificate (HSC) results released in December 2018 revealed that 11 students had been named world ranking top achievers, scoring ATAR 80 and above, while all INTI International College Penang students had obtained 100% passes in all subjects.
Leong Ming Jo amazed his lecturers and fellow course mates by scoring the highest ATAR of 94.30 in INTI with 2 high distinctions and 2 distinctions. There were 34 INTI students who sat for their examinations in October 2018.
ATAR is an acronym for ‘Australian Tertiary Admission Rank’, and is the primary criterion used by Australian universities to admit students into undergraduate courses. This percentile ranking measures a student’s overall performance in comparison to their peers upon completion of their studies.
Students had the opportunity to obtain the HSC locally, which is recognised by top universities in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States and Asia.
At the Top Achiever Ceremony held at INTI’s Penang campus recently, the students received their Higher School Certificate, issued by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), New South Wales.
According to the analysis of the HSC Results 2018 sent to INTI, INTI students performed well by obtaining a total of 12 high distinctions (Band 6 or E4) and 67 distinctions (Band 5 or E3).
The HSC marks for non-Extension courses are divided into 6 bands, for a 2-Unit course, Band 6 which carries marks 90 - 100 indicates the highest level of performance; whereas each Extension course is divided into 4 bands, with Band E4 carries the highest marks of 45 – 50.
A total of 5.41% of the candidates scored an ATAR of 90 and above, placing them in the top 10 percent of the cohort worldwide; 29.73% scored an ATAR of 80 and above placing them in the top 20 percent internationally.
Apart from that, 89.2% of the candidates scored ATAR 55.5 and above, and gained 100% passes in all subjects including Biology, Business Studies, Chemistry, Economics, English, Information process and technology, Mathematics, Mathematics Extension 1 and Physics.
Head of School of Pre University Studies Dinash Kandasamy said: “This achievement is significant to INTI because it tells us that we’re doing the right things to maintain the quality of our staff and students.”
He said this was not an easy feat.
“Our team worked closely with HSC students, monitored their grades and used various preventive and intervention activities.
“The efforts of the faculty coupled with other support systems like additional classes and INTI’s mentor-mentee programme that provides one-onone tutoring, helped the students unleash their abilities within a short period of time,” he said.
Leong said he was proud of his achievement.
“My time at INTI has been 180-degree change from secondary school.
“The HSC course at INTI compresses two years of studies into an intensive 10 months so time management and discipline were crucial.
“The lecturers at INTI were a great help as they ensured that we could understand the syllabus,” he said.