By Tyler Wright
It was a long competitive streak that pushed Mountain District Christian School Year 12 students Makayla Allisey and Asher Megee to receive their ATAR scores of above 90.
Sweat 1 and Sweat 2, as the pair are fetitiously nicknamed, have battled each other for the top spot in marks – and everything else – since Grade 5.
This year, Asher was named school Valedictorian and received an ATAR of 90.3, while Makayla received an ATAR of 96.65 and received a study score of above 40 in her Psychology and Further Mathematics subjects.
“I’m pretty sure I screamed when I got it, I was not expecting that,” Makayla said.
Meanwhile, Asher said he was slightly disappointed with results in some of his subjects.
“There was some relief when I opened it… I wasn’t going to be happy with anything below 90,” Asher said.
“It was a lot of pressure.”
Exam time brought adversity for Makayla; with her cousin and grandmother passing away on the date of her exam, and a car accident before that which she had not fully recovered from.
“I had a lot of stuff happen in my exam time, so I wasn’t very confident coming out of my exams because I wasn’t very focused going into them, but obviously it turned out all good,” she said.
While Makayla’s original focus was to enter into a Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science at Deakin University – which she has applied for – a higher than expected ATAR has meant she has also applied to study physiotherapy.
“My course didn’t even need a high ATAR, I’m pretty sure my only motivation to study was to beat Asher,” Makayla laughed.
Asher is also looking to study physiotherapy in an honours degree at La Trobe University.
“It’s weird to break the routine that has been the last 13 years…there’s parts of me that are looking forward to studying in a specialised field and learning something I’m interested in, but It’s also a lot of stress, especially that it’s not guaranteed that I’ll get into my preferred courses,” he said.
Eight students went finished VCE at Mountain District School in 2022 in the Monbulk Prep to Year 12 school’s final year in the community, with one student passing unscored.
[At] the farewell assemblies…that’s when it started to dawn on me how big it was…thinking about all our teachers and how they have to go and find new jobs and all the students that have to go and find a new school,” Asher said.
“As I said in my Valedictorian speech, ;as one door closes for all these people, another one will open.'”
As for advice for incoming Year 12 students, it’s all about balance.
“Asher has this quote that he says… that ‘you can’t be good at everything.’ Every time I was struggling with something, or I was complaining about something, he’d just say you ‘can’t be good at everything,’ Makayla said.
