I think it makes no sense to talk about anything other then academics. Remember it’s a Science school not just another high school. You need to be academically way up then rest of the peers. They don’t care about your extra curricular activities like sports/music etc ,you should be able
To cope up with all scaled up subjects taken for VCE, that’s why there is a GD, Puzzle and interview round. Why not a sports or music presentation???
Also if you don’t have any academic achievements then there is nothing to talk but if you have them they go thru every certificate and ask you everything related.
Stop spreading this that academics doesn’t matter!!!! It really does and a lot of people will come to understand that once offer letters are sent out.
So all the best and keep yours fingers crossed if you think academics is not what they are looking for.
Well that may be true, but by your logic, if this applies to every academic selective school like Melbourne High, MHS's selection process would only choose people with good academic ability, but many people get in because they do sports like water polo. MHS and JMSS may differ in their selection process as JMSS is a science school but i definitely believe that they do care about what you do outside of school (hobbies and extracurricular activities) depending on the interviewer you get.
I didn't have any academic awards at all and i only had a good report to present to them. (on the other hand i did have extracurricular awards and most of the interview, i talked about my extracurriclar achievements)
So assuming if everyone at my year 11 interview had good reports and academic awards and the selection process was based only on academic merit, i definitely would not have been picked as i didn't have any academic awards. (Considering there were 80 at the interview and only 20 got chosen)
So yes academics do matter, but don't say that extracurricular acheivements doesn't matter if you don't how the selection process works behind the scene.