With the sun beating down despite the supposedly winter weather, seven Australian exchange students, Bethany Tramontano, Phoebe Tracey, Jordan Monique, Thomas Refalo, Jamie Anyon-Smith, Adam Clark and Tim McAlpine eagerly arrived on Dec. 26, excited to begin their California adventure.
Although we are continents apart and on opposite sides of the equator, Hawkesbury and Temple City share many similarities. It seems, however, that the biggest difference between the exchange students and us is our education systems. Not only are students categorized by years instead of grades, but things such as GPAs and SATs, painfully crucial numbers to us, remain nonexistent for them.
“American students complete SAT tests whereas we complete the HSC (Higher School Certificate), this occurs in our final year of school, year 12,” Tracey said. “American schools also seem to have a wider variety of subjects to study from.”
A student takes the HSC during his last year, and unlike the SAT or ACT, the test spans across a few weeks. The test makes up a large percentage of the students’ ATAR, or Australian Tertiary Admission Rank. Scored out of 100, the ATAR in essence is a onetime GPA that helps universities to determine how well a student would likely perform at his school.
Another difference between our high school and the exchange students’ is daily class schedules. The exchange students run on a timetable schedule, so that they have different classes each day.
“It’s different every day so it doesn’t get boring,” McAlpine said. “But your school does a lot more sports, plays and music events.”
Most of the schools in Hawkesbury are smaller in comparison to Temple City, ranging from around 1000-1500 students total. Despite the difference in education systems and testing, our schools share many similar programs. Clark, a year 11 student from Colo High School, participates in a program similar to Link Crew.
“I’m terrible at sports so I can’t help my school there. The only real extracurricular activity I do is Peer Support, where I basically help year 7 kids to get settled into high school,” Clark said. “I’ll take a group of them and we’ll do exercises like teamwork, friend making and stuff like that.”
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