When the HSC school rankings were published on Thursday, a wave of excitement rippled through the class of 2017, their parents and old boys and girls around Sydney.
Despite many protests from schools about the publishing of league tables, the Herald's list had recorded nearly half a million searches between 12pm Thursday and 9am Friday.
An analysis of the data shows the top 10 most searched schools have been dominated by private boys' schools. With the exception of co-educational independent school Barker College, the other most searched for schools are all single-sex boys' schools.
Knox is at the top, followed by Barker, SHORE, Scots' and The King's School. The first girls' school, at number 8, is Loreto Kirribilli.
As at 9am Friday, there were 126 schools with more than 1000 searches on the SMH's interactive rankings (see the full list below).
When it came to searching by school on our HSC Honour Roll, which reveals individual student achievements, the leading NSW school James Ruse Agricultural High was in the number one spot.
James Ruse was the top performing NSW school for the 22nd year in row.
The other most searched schools on that list was Knox, Barker, Sydney Grammar and Sydney Boys and Sydney Girls.
Ahead of the release of the rankings, the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia, which represents 162 girls schools across Australia and New Zealand, said educators Australia-wide find league tables frustrating.
The alliance said the simplicity of league tables made them popular. iFrameResize({ resizedCallback: function (messageData) { }, checkOrigin: false }, '#pez_iframeB');
But they warned the tables are "both deeply flawed and dangerously misleading for parents, who are likely to view them as a representation of a school's overall success in educating its students and may rely on them when selecting a school for their child".
"Yes, academic merit is important, however it is the social and emotional building blocks, the confidence to take bold approaches to challenges, the skills to embrace calculated risks and the leadership opportunities that prepare students for career and life success that are also markers of a successful education," the alliance's president Ros Curtis said.
