After distracting himself playing backyard cricket with his younger brother Ben in the lead up to 9am when the results were released, the Oxley High School student took a deep breath, fired up his laptop and took a look.

What he saw beaming back at him was extremely gratifying.

“I expected around 96 or 97 so I was really happy with it,” Nick said.

Mum, Wendy and dad, Jim, were also “over the moon” when he gave them the good news.

The part-time lifeguard plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and study medicine, hopefully at the University of NSW in Sydney.

“Dad’s a doctor, but it’s just something I want to do – no one pushed me to do it,” he said.

“Although he didn’t say anything, I think (dad’s) secretly pretty happy.”

Nick will find out if he is accepted in the first round of university offers on January 16.

But with a perfect UMAT test score, which is used specifically to assist with the selection of students into the medicine, dentistry and health science degrees, things are looking bright for the talented youth.

Oxley High principal Simon Bartlett-Taylor said there were “smiles all around” yesterday as news of Mr Stacey’s and a number of other students’ outstanding achievements filtered in.

Hot on Mr Stacey’s heels was Sam Liles who achieved an ATAR score of 97.45. Both students made it onto the HSC honour roll for students who achieve 90 or above in 10 or more units of study.

Alex McKenzie and Carmen Hooper also accomplished ATARs into the 90s.

The Armidale School dux Aidan Hammerschmid was a “little surprised” by his almost flawless ATAR score of 99.7, saying it was higher than expected.

Mr Hammerschmid, who came seventh in the state for business studies, aims to study a bachelor of commerce at Melbourne University.

Calrossy’s top achievers included Elise Lamph with an ATAR score of 94.95, Claudia Chaffey with 94.1 and Jaynie Ryan with 93.5.