MARIAN College year 12 student, Alex Van Opstal, has been named the school\u2019s 2021 Dux, scoring an ATAR of 89.35 last Thursday.<\/p>\n
The aspiring medical student is hopeful the score will allow him to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps.<\/p>\n
Mr Van Opstal said his success, despite the adversities faced by the class of 2021, is thanks to the support of his teachers and peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was difficult, going in and out of lockdowns throughout the year but your teachers and friends are always there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good group of kids that worked together really well, fed off each other, so I think that was huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dux studied English, Physics, Chemistry, Maths Methods, Biology (in year 11) and Further Maths – his best subject.<\/p>\n
Mr Van Opstal admits he was a little disappointed when opening his score on Thursday morning, hoping for an ATAR in the 90s, but is not letting that deter him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI opened it as soon as seven o’clock hit and I had hoped for a little more, so I was a little bit disappointed but soon enough you accept it and move on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The ATAR allows tertiary institutions to competitively rank students between 0.00 and 99.95 with increments of 0.05 based on their study score results in each subject.<\/p>\n
An ATAR of 89.35 means Mr Van Opstal\u2019s desired courses at Monash University in Medicine and Biomedicine are still in reach.<\/p>\n
He said students will receive their first round offers on January 14, in three weeks\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
Marian College principal, Carmel Barker, said she is pleased with the school\u2019s results and what \u201cseems to be an improvement overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur highest students weren’t as high as normal, but I think that’s very understandable because they really didn’t have exam practice. There was no opportunity to do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were about five students in the 80s and about a third of them were 70 plus. After two really tough years, we’re pleased with the students and how resilient they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five students studying VCE unit 3\/4 subjects at Marian College were listed on the high achiever\u2019s honour roll for receiving a study score of 40 or above in a subject out of 50.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Tonks in Biology (47), Ivana Donnan in Biology (45), Alex Van Opstal in Further Maths (44), Tayla Pevitt in Food Studies (43) and Emily Manning in Food Studies (40).<\/p>\n
Ms Barker congratulated the five students and their peers on their persistence and hard work in a year like \u201cno other year level will ever experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all so proud of them and so are their parents, they’re just remarkable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MARIAN College year 12 student, Alex Van Opstal, has been named the school\u2019s 2021 Dux, scoring an ATAR of 89.35 last Thursday. The aspiring medical student is hopeful the score will allow him to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps. Mr Van Opstal said his success, despite the adversities faced by the class of 2021, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Alex.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-7H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}