The students were part of a class of 48,594 Victorian VCE students this year.

Ararat College named Sam Farish dux after he achieved an ENTER score of 95.4.

Studying biology, chemistry, English, maths methods and specialist maths, Sam plans to take a year off next year to work and then hopes to study marine biology at Deakin University in Warrnambool the following year.

A fascination with sharks has led Sam towards the marine biology field.

''I really like sharks...I like watching them and watching their action,'' he said.

Sam enjoyed his VCE year and while he managed to fit in some `down time', he worked hard throughout the year to achieve his good results.

''It went pretty quickly, but it was also challenging,'' he said.

''As long as you got the hard work done you got the results.''

Ararat College year 12 co-ordinator Geoff Parkinson was pleased with the results of the year 12 students.

''Generally students should be very pleased,'' he said.

''Good results were dotted throughout the class and overall it was probably the best all round performance for a few years.

''Hopefully they will lay down the challenge for next year's group.''

Stawell's Georgia Lowe was named dux of Marian College with her ENTER score of 93.5.

Georgia studied English, chemistry, psychology and maths methods this year, while last year she completed two VCE subjects, legal studies and biology.

Attending Melbourne University and study in the field of biomedicine is the plan for Georgia in 2010.

Biomedicine leads to a research based career.

Georgia will be moving to Ballarat with her family during the school holidays.

As with most VCE students, Georgia had a challenging but enjoyable year.

''This year was all about school and that's about it. I was quite focused on school,'' she said.