YEAR 12 VCE students across Portland and the district anxiously started up their devices yesterday to find out their ATAR scores.

To their surprise, three students discovered they received the highest result out of their entire year-level, crowning them dux.

This year’s Portland Secondary College dux is Gina Shemeld, 17, who got an 87.1 ATAR.

Gina said she is proud of her result and is quite excited about what the future holds.

“I'd like to do nursing at Warrnambool (Deakin), and then after that, I'd either like to do a doctor of medicine or a biomedical engineering degree,” she said.

“I wasn't expecting this ATAR, otherwise I might have gone and done the biomedical engineering right away.

“I’d really like to work in women's health care.

“With family and friends, you hear these scary stories about healthcare, and you see it on the news a lot. I'd like to work in that field and help improve it.”

Gina said she took a biology class in school and was inspired by her teacher Ms Jennings.

Heywood and District Secondary College’s 2024 Dux Kadan Argall, 18, received a 64.25 ATAR result and said it was between him and a classmate to see who would get it, as they were the only VCE students.

“It was 50/50 for me since it's only two of us,” he said.

“We did all the same classes, except he did accounting and I did chemistry.”

As of term three, Kadan has already got stuck into a job at Icon Investments in Portland, which he is enjoying.

“I'm going to continue working there for at least another couple of years,” he said.

“I don't think I'll chase too many further things. The most I’ll do is potentially just get some more certificates in security or stuff like that.

“That's only really if I need them to be able to legally do something in the field.

“I more or less go around and install and do maintenance and all that on security systems and networking systems.

“Considering it's pretty much most of my life so far up to now that’s been school – it's sort of nice to get out into the world, have a bit of freedom.”

Lastly, the Bayview College 2024 dux is Emelia Clements, who achieved an ATAR of 91.1 and hopes to study nursing and midwifery.

She is currently overseas holidaying with her family.