I applied for SCHS which is close to my current school. It’s like 10 minutes away from my house. And 7 minutes ish from my current school. I live on the west side so macrob would’ve been mentally draining and tiring coming home everyday at around 5pm 5 days a week. And it would be tiring for my parents if they take me home everyday and to school. I didn’t make it in but I’m kinda glad I didn’t. Apparently some ppl just fall behind and drop out those schools when they don’t teach properly. But idk I guess those schools have better opportunities like travelling to countries. I’ve seen SCHS have been to like NYC,Greece,China and a few other countries in Asia before as like camp/ subject excursion.
It all seems fun and many schools don’t have those opportunities i guess, but that’s the 1 of the few things I might be missing out on, as well as music (piano lol) but it’s all good.
But yeah you’re right.
I go to MHS so I can't say anything about the other schools. The reason I'm posting here is because I remember stressing out before the exam in 8th grade after studying so much (not sure if my hours of study were worth it, it's best to think about current life than consider hypothetical that can't be). I can say that there are certain things here that are great, such as the sports, extracurriculars, music and the environment - one of my main reasons was oddly the proximity to the city since I would only visit one every year or two before making it in.
Also I can confirm that people do "burn out" after making it in. I've found that the Year 10 entrants (where extracurriculars such as sport and music have a large priority) have sometimes greatly outperformed the Year 9 entrants which is really interesting. I remember the attitude in Year 9 MHS was incredibly "chill", as if students' major goal of making it into the school was over and the two junior years were a time to relax.
And to those who complain about the cap on students, I can attest that this is a horrible system and it surely undermines the meritocratic testing system to get into the schools. Most of my friends who didn't get in either stayed at my old school in the accelerated class or went to John Monash Science School (JMSS). I can see that there are some schools by my peers that the schools they came from are correlated to their effort in school and their results. Additionally, I know some of my friends that are with me now who I knew at my prior school only performed slightly better on the exam but may potentially not be as "deserving" (whatever that may imply) of taking the position "from" another student. They might change the 5% cap some day.