‘I’m pretty proud’: Manjimup Senior High School student Abbey Hall aces ATARs with 95.2

Manjimup sports star Abbey Hall has yet another achievement to smile about, after wrapping up 2022 with one of the highest ATAR results in the South West. The gifted 17-year-old basketballer and netballer has proven her talents extend beyond the courts, graduating Manjimup Senior High School with an impressive ATAR score of 95.20. The result placed her as one of the top students in the South West and the highest achieving student in the Southern Forests region. “I’m pretty happy and proud,” she said. “It was a pretty good feeling after a long year.” She is no stranger to the limelight, with a number of impressive achievements in the sporting realm making her a regular in the sports pages of Manjimup-Bridgetown Times and the South Western Times. As well as being a regular top scorer for Aces in the Bunbury Basketball League, she has earned herself a spot on the South West Slammers NBL1 West team, and has been named as a training partner in the Souwest Jets’ 20/U WA Netball League squad for a second time for 2023. Ms Hall hopes to study medicine at Curtin University. “I’m heading up to Perth in February and I have applied to study medicine,” she said. “To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to study and the subjects I enjoyed in high school were human biology and chemistry.” Looking at what careers would enable her to put those passions into practice, and also knowing she wanted to work with people, she landed on medicine. “I thought ‘why not start with medicine and see if I like it?’ and I can go from there,” she said. “I have an interview with UWA but my first choice is Curtin.” Her advice for the next cohort of students taking their ATARs was to have a balance between school, work and life outside of school. “I would definitely say to try and stress the least as possible and definitely keep a balanced lifestyle,” Ms Hall said. “I obviously had to focus on studies, but I still played basketball and netball at a high level and continue to play sports. “Don’t give up the things you enjoy aside from school, because it helps you focus when you do have to study.” She also thanked her family for their support during the ATAR exam season. “I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ to my family, especially my parents, for their support and not pressuring me too much.”