I graduated from Hurlstone in 2010 and it was an awesome school. Very relaxed atmosphere. Some very competitive aka note-hogging students. Mehs. If you are a 1337 student it doesnt matter what your peers are up to, because in the end the better man wins. On a related note, I dont really get why all the asians keep complaining and stigmatising Ag. It was a wonderful subject. All that talk about scaling is irrelevant. 10 units count. If you believe that Ag's crappy scaling is going to affect your ATAR that much then you also need to consider your performance in your other subjects. Yes, I did Ag and I loved it and I did well in it. No bias intended. Lol. Just never really got why some of my peers looked down on Ag. Also, it doesnt really matter how your cohort is. If you rank 1st in a subject and you have what it takes to top it again in the HSC exam, you will end up with a great mark for that course any ways. Its a bit unrealistic to think that one can rely on their cohort seeing as from my experience, no-one really shared notes with each other; it was only after the trials that notes were shared. I mean, the ranks were set. I mean even amongst friends, there was that implicit rivalry. The HSC is, at the end of the day, about self-confidence and individual performance. Rankings really only show overall performance, they dont account for individual factors. Having said that, with both schools' cohorts being focused on academic performance, this factor doesnt really matter.
I hope this makes sense. Correct me for any undue assumptions. I just happened to be quite a competitive student who enjoyed doing non-asian subjects. Lol.