Artemisa Sfendouraki couldn’t contain herself when I spoke with her. A perfect score, 50, in Greek looked back at her after she opened her VCE results letter.
The Saint Catherine College student beat 256 students that completed Modern Greek, up from last year’s turnout of 243.
The strong performance of Greek students this year was easily seen, as 22 students achieved a score over 40 in Modern Greek.
The thirteen more students taking up the course could show a resurgence in interest for the language, but the numbers have been somewhat random over the years. Over the last five years the numbers have peaked at 292 students in 2008 while dropping in 2011 to 243 students.
Hundreds of Greek Australians managed to top their year, with an abundance picking up top scores (50) in Biology (Stephanie Sipus, Mooroolbank College), Business Management (Ellen Kafkas, Shelford Girls Grammar), English (Xafina Dendrionos, Mentone Girls Grammar School), Health (Irina Galanos, Balwin High), Revolutions History (John Petras, Viewbank College), Literature (Benita Kolovos, Star of the Sea College and Natasha Kotismbos, Ruyton Girls’ School) and lastly in Further Maths (John Apostopoulos, Ivanhoe Grammar School).
Efthimia Blazos of McKinnon Secondary College got the best score Neos Kosmos knows of any Greek Australian student, with an outstanding ATAR score of 99.7.
Miss Blazos hopes to study Biomedicine at Melbourne University or Monash and told Neos Kosmos that while her studies did hinder her social life a bit, luckily her sport wasn’t effected.
“I worked really hard and methodically to a specific timetable, one that did interfere with my social life but didn’t get in the way of my sport or my part time job,” she says.
Joining her with fantastic results is Dimitra Tsironis, who achieved an ATAR score of 98.9. The Avila College student’s stellar score could be said to have come from her amazing results in year 11, where she got the top score in Greek, (48) and a 47 in Biology, all of which marked up.
She too wants to study Biomedicine at Melbourne University, but thinks she might not get in, by .1 of a per cent.
“I actually missed my course by .1, so as much as I’m ecstatic, I’m a tiny bit disappointed” she says with a laugh.
In those situations all you can do is laugh. There is still hope for Miss Tsironis, as university preferences come out in January.
The Education Minister, Martin Dixon says all students should be proud of their hard work and should not be discouraged if they did not get the result they hoped for.
“It’s not the end of the world,” he said.
“There really are many paths to get to where you want to go with further study or career options.
“It really would be good to go back to your school, talk to your careers councillor and talk about those other paths.”
Greek colleges had a stellar year with their students’ results.
Alphington Grammar had one of its best years, with dux of the school Jordan Ignatiadis scoring 97.7. 12 per cent of Alphington Grammar’s Year 12 students achieved an ATAR of 90 or above.
Acting Principle, Mark Stanton said “the results achieved this year set a new benchmark which we will encourage each successive year level to aspire to better.
“I congratulate the class of 2012 for taking on board the message I gave them in 2010 – ie ‘Reach for the stars. If you fall short you may still end up out of this world,” he said.
St John’s College was happy with their students, with 8 per cent of them obtaining a score of 80 or above.
Students also performed above the state mean in English, Greek, Legal Studies, History and IT.
More than 82,000 students saw the fruits of their labours with VCE results coming out this week.
The most popular subjects were English at 42,636 students, Maths (46,992), Psychology (16,099) and Health (13,273).
And out of 106 subjects on offer, 705 students achieved a top score of 50.