By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
HE’S the VCE student who had one goal during Year 12 – to please himself, and with that he managed to get dux of Hillcrest Christian College.
Ahmed Saeed couldn’t sleep on Sunday night eagerly awaiting his ATAR score which was revealed to VCE students across the state on Monday 14 December.
“I was up at 5am, I wasn’t worried – I just had tension and then I cruised through the morning and woke up at about 10am,” Ahmed said.
“I got a phone call from my VCE co-ordinator at about 10.30am and he said ‘You got dux’!”
“I didn’t expect it.”
It wasn’t until 12.30pm that Ahmed checked his score of 96.75.
As he decided to look up his score in his own time, it was Ahmed’s parents who were getting impatient.
“Dad had been up since 9am waiting to hear and my mum was getting pretty angry,” Ahmed said, laughing.
But his plan on the day and right throughout VCE paid off with a score that puts him in the top one per cent in Victoria.
“My whole idea around Year 12 right from the start was to do well enough to be able to look back and have no regrets, my goal was to get a score above 90 and to do my best,” Ahmed said.
After immigrating to Australia from Pakistan with his family, aged three, Ahmed moved around the country before settling in Berwick, and starting at Hillcrest Christian College in Year 9.
And Ahmed had nothing but praise for his school.
“Hillcrest was great, you get all the support you need from the teachers over the year and they really care,” he said.
“Throughout your whole schooling you are feeling the pressure of VCE – teachers say you better be scared, get ready.
“Then you get there and they say relax, they say just chill you’ll be okay.”
And that’s exactly what Ahmed tried to do, even though he quit his job as a pharmacy assistant and stopped all out of school activities throughout VCE.
“I was the most boring of people in VCE, but everyone’s approach is different in order to focus and I figured one night is a big loss of time away from study,” he said.
Labelling himself an angry man throughout all of Year 12, Ahmed hesitantly said he was “happy” with his score.
“My parents were ecstatic and pleased I was rewarded for my hard work, but I’m not a happy person.
“I’m always going to be striving for better results but I am content and happy that I gave my best,” he said.
Still not sure about where he wants to take his life, Ahmed said he would examine all his options.
“I don’t tell people my goals – I feel like I work harder for them if I keep them to myself,” he said.
Ahmed is a part of Hillcrest’s elite 2015 Year 12 group of six students scoring 90 and above and also sits among Casey’s highest achievers.
Cranbourne Secondary College Principal, Ken Robinson, was exceptionally proud of his dux student Danukshi Dharmasiri, who scored 92.15 and got a 50 in English as an Additional Language (EAL).
“She got a perfect score in EAL which is a subject specifically for students who have been in Australia less than seven years,” Mr Robinson said.
“It’s not often you get a perfect score so it was a pretty special outcome.”
The principal at Lyndhurst Secondary College, Warren Wills, was also pleased with his students’ performance.
“Rebecca Prowd got dux of the school with 94.3, which is a fantastic effort, we had two other students also in the nineties,” Mr Wills said.
