HSC 2025 Results: School Rankings, ATAR Data & What It All Means
The 2025 HSC results are in. For many students and families across NSW, December marked the end of a long road and the start of something new. Now that the dust has settled and the data is publicly available, it’s worth taking a proper look at what the numbers actually tell us — not just which schools topped the rankings, but what those rankings mean for students preparing for the HSC in 2026 and beyond.
The Big Picture: State-Wide ATAR Statistics for 2025
Before diving into individual schools, it helps to understand where the whole cohort landed.
- 60,432 students were eligible to receive an ATAR in NSW in 2025
- 53 students achieved the highest possible ATAR of 99.95 (34 males, 19 females)
- 1,045 students finished in the top 1% of the state with an ATAR of 99.00 or above
- 17.3% of the cohort received an ATAR of 90 or above
- 34.6% received an ATAR of 80 or above
- 51.3% received an ATAR of 70 or above
- The median ATAR across NSW was 70.75, a slight dip from 71.55 in 2024
- Female students recorded a median ATAR of 71.60, compared to 69.80 for male students
A quick reminder worth repeating: the ATAR is a rank, not a score out of 100. A 70.75 median means roughly half the state’s eligible students ranked above that point, and half below. It isn’t a mark out of 100 in the way a school exam result might be.
Understanding the Metrics: What Do These School Rankings Actually Measure?
There are several different ways to rank schools after HSC results are released, and each one measures something slightly different. It’s worth understanding what each metric captures before drawing conclusions.
Band 6 Success Rate (% Band 6 / E4): This is the most commonly cited ranking. It measures the proportion of a school’s total exam entries that resulted in a Band 6 (90-100) or E4 (top band in Extension courses). A high rate suggests that the school consistently pushes students toward the top of each subject, not just in a handful of classes.
% of Cohort Achieving ATAR 99+: This measures the density of top-1% achievers within a school. It tells you how many students are competing at the absolute highest level. Schools with selective cohorts and subject selection strategies that favour heavily-scaled courses tend to do well here.
% of Cohort Achieving ATAR 95+ and 90+: These metrics are sometimes called “fat middle” measures. A school with a high percentage in these bands isn’t just producing a handful of outliers — it’s lifting a significant portion of its students into high-achieving territory. For many families, this is actually the most meaningful number.
Top Schools by Band 6 Success Rate in 2025
Based on publicly available data, here are the top ten NSW schools ranked by their Band 6 and E4 success rate in 2025:
| Rank | School | % Band 6 | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Sydney Boys High School | 71.6% | North Sydney |
| 2 | James Ruse Agricultural High School | 70.43% | Carlingford |
| 3 | Sydney Grammar School | 60.99% | Darlinghurst |
| 4 | North Sydney Girls High School | 60.46% | Crows Nest |
| 5 | Normanhurst Boys High School | 57.73% | Normanhurst |
| 6 | Sydney Boys High School | 54.19% | Moore Park |
| 7 | Baulkham Hills High School | 51.53% | Hills District |
| 8 | Hornsby Girls High School | 51.05% | Hornsby |
| 9 | St Aloysius’ College | 48.03% | Kirribilli |
| 10 | Reddam House | 46.99% | Woollahra |
North Sydney Boys topped the state in this metric for the third consecutive year, with James Ruse sitting just a fraction behind. The top two spots are separated by barely more than one percentage point — both are extraordinary results.
What’s worth noting is that seven of the top eight schools are selective government schools. The presence of Sydney Grammar and Reddam House in this list reflects the strength of certain independent schools, but the data is a reminder that some of the best academic results in NSW come from non-fee-paying schools.
Schools with the Most Students Achieving a Perfect 99.95
While success rate tells us about cohort-wide performance, the race for a perfect ATAR is its own story. Of the 53 students who achieved 99.95 in 2025, here’s how they were distributed across schools:
- 9 students: James Ruse Agricultural High School
- 7 students: North Sydney Boys High School
- 6 students: Baulkham Hills High School; Sydney Grammar School
- 3 students: Barker College, Abbotsleigh, Roseville College, The King’s School, Knox Grammar School, North Sydney Girls High School
- 2 students: Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Pymble Ladies’ College
- 1 student: Meriden School, Scots College, St Aloysius’ College
James Ruse’s nine perfect scorers is a remarkable achievement and reflects the school’s consistent reputation as the destination for NSW’s highest academic achievers. To put that in perspective: that’s 9 of 53 perfect ATARs in the entire state, all from one school.
Top Schools by Percentage of Students Achieving 99+ ATAR
(Note: the following tables draw on self-reported school data, which not all schools have released at time of publication.)
| Rank | School | % of Cohort Achieving 99+ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney Grammar School | 33.7% |
| 2 | Baulkham Hills High School | 23% |
| 3 | Hornsby Girls High School | 18% |
| 4 | Abbotsleigh | 13% |
| 5 | St Aloysius’ College | 12% |
| 6 | Knox Grammar School | 9% |
| 7 | Ascham School | 9% |
| 8 | Shore School | 6.7% |
Sydney Grammar’s figure here is particularly striking. More than one in three of its students placed in the top 1% of NSW — a result that reflects both the calibre of the cohort and the school’s well-known approach to subject selection, particularly in Classical languages and Extension Mathematics.
Top Schools by Percentage of Students Achieving 95+ ATAR
| Rank | School | % of Cohort Achieving 95+ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney Grammar School | 72% |
| 2 | Girraween High School | 48% |
| 3 | Abbotsleigh | 45% |
| 4 | St Aloysius’ College | 44% |
| 5 | Reddam House | 40% |
| 6 | Knox Grammar School | 29% |
| 7 | Shore School | 26% |
| 8 | Loreto Kirribilli | 24% |
The appearance of Girraween High School in second place here is significant. It’s a selective government school that doesn’t have the same profile as James Ruse or North Sydney Boys, but nearly half its students are sitting in the top 5% of the state. That’s a result that speaks to the strength of selective schools well beyond the top five most recognisable names.
Top Schools by Percentage of Students Achieving 90+ ATAR
| Rank | School | % of Cohort Achieving 90+ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney Grammar School | 85% |
| 2 | St Aloysius’ College | 68% |
| 3 | Abbotsleigh | 66% |
| 4 | Reddam House | 61% |
| 5 | Ascham School | 59% |
| 6 | Meriden School | 53% |
| 7 | Shore School | 52% |
| 8 | Loreto Kirribilli | 51% |
| 9 | Knox Grammar School | 46% |
At Sydney Grammar, an ATAR below 90 is the exception rather than the rule — 85% of the cohort cleared that mark. This kind of result reflects a school where the academic floor is set very high. For independent schools like St Aloysius’, Abbotsleigh, and Ascham, a 60%+ rate in this band indicates that most students walk away with genuine access to competitive university pathways.
IB Results: NSW Highlights for 2025
The International Baccalaureate results were released on 17 December 2025. While the IB operates on a different system — scored out of 45, with a perfect 45 roughly equivalent to a 99.95 ATAR — NSW schools delivered some outstanding outcomes:
- Newington College led the IB field with 4 perfect scores of 45, and 52% of its IB cohort achieving 40 or above.
- Trinity Grammar School and Kambala each recorded 2 perfect scores of 45.
- St Andrew’s Cathedral School and Ravenswood School for Girls each celebrated 1 perfect score.
- MLC School produced 6 students scoring 44/45, reflecting consistent top-tier performance across the cohort rather than isolated peak results.
What the 2025 Scaling Data Tells Us About Subject Selection
This is the section that matters most for students currently studying for the 2026 HSC. The UAC scaling data that accompanies each year’s results isn’t just trivia — it’s a guide to smarter subject selection.
You don’t need all Maths and Science to get a perfect ATAR
One of the most persistent myths in HSC culture is that 99.95 belongs exclusively to students doing Extension 2 Maths and Physics. The 2025 results don’t support that. Students achieved perfect ATARs with subjects including Biology, Business Studies, Legal Studies, Modern History, and Music 2 in their combination. The conclusion is straightforward: if you can rank near the top of your cohort in a subject, it can contribute to a very high ATAR — regardless of what that subject is.
Some subjects have a mathematical ceiling
Not all subjects scale equally, and some genuinely do cap what ATAR is achievable. A few examples from 2025:
- Mathematics Standard 1: The highest ATAR achieved by any student who included this subject was 91.90. If your target is 95+, this subject works against you statistically.
- VET subjects: Results vary widely. Automotive had a ceiling around 88.65, while Hospitality reached closer to 98.95. These differences matter when you’re setting goals.
- English Standard vs Advanced: The top English Standard student in 2025 reached 99.80, but English Advanced, Extension 1, and Extension 2 all produced 99.95 achievers. Standard isn’t an automatic cap, but Advanced opens more doors if you can handle the workload.
Extension subjects are worth keeping if you’re doing well
The data consistently shows that students who take Extension courses almost always have them count toward their ATAR. In 2025, 97% of students who took Maths Extension 2 had it count — the highest inclusion rate of almost any subject. Extension courses scale strongly because the students who take them tend to be high performers, and that lifts the scaled marks across the board. If you’re managing the content, dropping an extension subject is rarely the right call.
Classical languages and difficult language courses punch above their weight
Latin Continuers, Classical Greek, French Extension, German Extension, and Italian Extension all produced 99.95 scorers in 2025. The inclusion rates for language extension units are high, meaning they almost always help. These aren’t widely studied, but students who do well in them benefit significantly.
What Does This Mean If You’re Studying Now?
A few practical takeaways from the 2025 data for current HSC students:
Know your ceiling. Before locking in your subject selection for Year 12, check how the subjects you’re considering have scaled and what the top achievable ATAR looks like with that combination. Choosing subjects you’re unlikely to excel in, just because they sound impressive, rarely pays off.
Play to your strengths. The student who gets a 96 in Business Studies will very likely outperform the student who scrapes through Physics with a 72. The ATAR rewards relative performance within your cohort, not perceived prestige of subject choices.
Think twice before dropping an Extension course. If you’re holding your ground in Extension English or Extension Maths, the data says: keep going. The drop in workload from removing it is usually not worth what you lose in scaling potential.
The median ATAR (70.75) is not a floor — it’s a midpoint. Half the cohort sits below it. If you’re working hard and getting consistent marks in the Band 4-5 range, you’re doing better than you might think relative to the whole state.
A Note on Using School Rankings
School rankings are genuinely useful context, but they come with limitations worth keeping in mind.
Selective schools, by definition, enrol students who have already demonstrated high academic performance before Year 7. Comparing a selective school’s Band 6 rate to a comprehensive school’s is not a fair comparison — the starting cohorts are completely different. A comprehensive school whose students improve significantly from Year 10 to HSC might be delivering more actual educational value, even if its Band 6 rate looks lower on paper.
The rankings also depend heavily on subject selection strategies. Schools that encourage students to take Extension courses and high-scaling subjects will naturally tend to appear higher in success-rate tables.
None of this makes the data useless — it’s worth knowing. But school rankings are one input among many when thinking about what actually helps students succeed.
Looking Ahead to 2026
The Class of 2025 set a strong standard. For students currently in Year 11 and preparing for 2026, the single most important thing you can take from this data is: your subject combination and your relative performance within each subject are the two levers you actually control.
No single school, tutor, or resource guarantees a result. But understanding how the system works, making smart choices about subjects, and consistently working toward the top of your cohort — those are the things the data shows actually produce strong ATARs.
If you’re looking for support as you head into your final year, Save My HSC has resources covering all the major HSC English courses. [Browse our resources here.]
