Topping the state in dance was not entirely unexpected for 18-year-old Jessica Goodfellow, who was headhunted by the Sydney Dance Company during her final year of high school.
"It was all I wanted," said Jessica, who will begin a pre-professional course with the company next year.
She has been dancing since she was three years old, but "got more serious" about ballet and contemporary dance when she began at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts.
She was awarded joint first in course for the subject at Tuesday's ceremony, alongside Bridget Mulholland of Trinity Catholic College Lismore and Mikala Holloway of Northern Beaches Secondary College.
"Since I got the Sydney Dance Company offer I calmed down a bit, but it's great to have gone well," Jessica said.
"I wanted to do the best I could, and I probably did too much sometimes. The practical was never a problem, dancing is something we do all the time.
"The theory was the difficult part for me."
Bridget Mulholland, on the hand, says that she "really enjoyed the science part of dance".
"I majored in performance, where you learn about how your body works and how to dance safely," she said.
"You also do appreciation where you have to study choreographic works. There are a lot of components of dance as a subject."
One of her two teachers, who she credits as "a massive help these past two years", left her eight missed calls as soon as she heard about the award.
"She was really proud, very excited," Bridget said.
"Dance was such an awesome, relaxed environment. It was like a whole other subject where we got to do fun stuff, we got to dance."
She is hoping to study science or physiotherapy at Melbourne University next year, but is "pretty chilled out" about getting her ATAR on Wednesday.
This week is the culmination of a busy final year for NSW students, with the first in course awards, HSC marks and ATARs released on three consecutive days from Tuesday. Students who topped courses were told on Friday, with some like Caitlin Lee cutting short a holiday to be at the awards ceremony.
"I was in a tiny little flat in Paris and it was 3am when the phone went off. I got put on with this woman from the Board of Studies who said, 'Congratulations, you've topped history extension'," Caitlin said.
"We got on the phone with the travel agent straight away. I was really drowsy and it was just insane."
"ATAR permitting", she is hoping to do arts and law at the University of Sydney.
"But if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. There are other ways in."
