North Sydney Boys, James Ruse bolt away in HSC rankings

North Sydney Boys has topped the state in the Higher School Certificate for the third year in a row, securing a historic trifecta and solidifying the school’s reputation for academic excellence.

Its rival, James Ruse Agricultural High School, narrowly placed second in this year’s results, with the two schools scoring marks that place them in a breakaway league ahead of other schools in the top 10.

Sydney Grammar was the top private school, placing third for the second year running, while North Sydney Girls equalled their best performance in a decade to secure fourth place.

Public selective schools took out seven spots in the top 10, while private schools St Aloysius’ College and Reddam House rounded out the top 10. They were followed by girls’ schools Abbotsleigh, Ascham and Sydney Girls.

Both public and private girls’ schools recorded a surge in the proportion of students achieving marks of 90 per cent or more this year, with single-sex female schools taking out almost half of the top 50 places.

The Herald ranks schools by calculating their HSC success rate. This figure is the number of top band results – student subject marks of at least 90 – as a proportion of the total number of subject attempts at that school.

North Sydney Boys had a success rate of 71.6 per cent this year, up more than six percentage points on the previous year’s cohort. By comparison, James Ruse, which placed second in the state, had a success rate of 70.4. James Ruse’s performance this year would have outperformed North Sydney Boys last year.

North Sydney Boys principal Brian Ferguson came into his school at dawn by himself so he could log on and see how individual students had performed. He was soon yelling at the top of his voice in excitement.

“Every page I turned, when I saw how well they did, I was almost in tears of joy,” he said.

“We just didn’t know what to expect. I was just grateful they’re going to have these opportunities, and I know that they’re going to be happy because they’re going to see that hard work, collaboration pays off.”

The biggest year-on-year improvement in success rate was at Caringbah High in the city’s south, which had a 14 percentage point rise in students scoring marks of 90 or more.

Its performance was thanks to its legal studies students, with more than half the class scoring band sixes. Other subjects in which students excelled included business studies, mathematics advanced, mathematics extension 1 and English extension 1.

Private boys school Newington College, which will admit girls next year, had its best result in a decade, leaping 75 places to rank 52nd. Its result was driven by a range of subjects, including mathematics and English extension, where students recorded success rates above 55 per cent.

Comprehensive public school Crestwood High in Baulkham Hills jumped 71 places to 165th with a success rate 11.4 per cent, up four percentage points on last year. Students there did exceptionally well in Mathematics extension 1, with 38 per cent of the cohort earning top marks above 90 per cent.

MLC School in Burwood was 58th, while Kincoppal-Rose Bay leapt 34 spots to place 34th.

Girls school Ravenswood jumped 26 places to be 14th in the state, with students performing particularly well in English extension 1 and textiles.

Year 12 student Kaitlyn Wee said her teachers’ feedback was key to her success in English.

“They gave us the resources, we just wrote about what we loved,” she said.

For her classmate, Zara West, her result was turbocharged after taking on advice from her teachers.

“I struggled a lot with creative writing… My marks and creative writing were quite low compared to the rest of the cohort,” she said. By the time HSC exams rolled around, she realised her standing changed significantly when her teacher told her: “You need to back yourself, I know you’re a great writer.”

Ravenswood’s deputy principal, teaching and learning, Jennifer Richardson said the school’s adoption of a positive education framework equipped students with the tools to succeed.

“I think the cohort itself is a very collaborative and cohesive group, we talked to them about how flourishing is not a solo endeavour,” she said.

This year’s strong result for single sex schools comes as numerous high-fee private schools are on the cusp of transitioning to co-education.

This year marks the 58th year of the HSC in NSW. The last few decades have seen a pronounced trend of fewer public comprehensives ranking in the top 100 schools.

Of the top 300 schools in the Herald’s league table, 64 were public comprehensives, down nine from last year, while 16 were partially selective and 20 were fully selective. Independent schools accounted for 136 places (up five) and Catholic schools took up 64 (up four).

More than 270 schools ranked in the top 300 had ICSEA scores, which measure socio-educational advantage, in the highest two quintiles, and two were in the lowest.

The top-ranking comprehensive school was Willoughby Girls at 57th, down two spots, followed by Balgowlah Boys at 63rd, down one place from last year.

The top-ranking systemic Catholic school was Parramatta Marist High at 44th, up 15 spots from last year. It was the second-best result in 10 years for a systemic Catholic school, behind only St Clare’s College Waverley (29th) in 2021.

There were 83,893 students studying one or more HSC courses in 2025. Of these students, 74,714 were on track to complete at least one HSC course this year, down from last year’s record cohort of 80,166.

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