For the first time, an international student has been named Dux of Sunbury Downs College, and she dreams of becoming a doctor.
Alice (Yixuan) Liu scored an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of 94.5. She hopes to study biomedical science at Monash University.
She came to the college from China in 2019 as a year nine student as part of the school’s international program, which started six years ago.
She said she was proud of herself for her VCE result, surprised and “super satisfied” to have reached her goal of college Dux.
The student acknowledged the support of her teachers, as well as her own resilience to persevere through the difficulties of lockdowns and interrupted learning.
“I could not have achieved this score without the support from all my teachers. I would like to say a big thank you to them,” she said.
“Also, the school and our captains organised some fun activities for us to participate in throughout the year to help us relieve the stress.”
College international student coordinator Anina Alexander said Alice was “hard working, ambitious and focused on her goal of a career in medicine”.
“She was meticulous in consistently studying – that’s a skill,” she said.
“From the time she started at the college she has wanted to achieve her best with purely hard work and having a go.”
