I didn't want to be at school growing up.

It wasn't because I lacked a passion to study, but because it was where I first learnt I didn't belong.

When I started school, show and tell was often filled with stories — happy or sad — the kids were encouraged to share. When my turn came, I regaled the class with news of last night's police raid.

I was stopped.

"Tara. That's not the sort of story we share in show and tell," my teacher told me.

I couldn't focus on schoolwork because I was dealing with issues kids should never have to face.

Throughout my academic life in primary and high school, I just couldn't catch up.

I couldn't focus on schoolwork because I was dealing with issues a kid should never face. ( Supplied )

The fact is that ATARs measure privilege, not academic merit, and it starts in kindergarten.

What we believe we can conclude from an ATAR is flawed as our society drifts further away from egalitarianism.

The result? Failure

I failed school because I grew up in a world that exists beneath yours. I learnt a range of skills that helped me survive in the impoverished world I was born into. But the more I learned about negotiating that world, the more I found myself pushed out of the mainstream one where "normal" kids did well at school.

Instead I learnt where to get food vouchers and how to put my name on a waitlist for public housing, or how to steal just a little food from each lunchbox so people didn't notice but I still got to eat.

I learnt never to trust the police.

I learnt that most teachers were not there to help you, but instead saw you as an "issue" to be "managed".

You see, I was a bad influence, so I was not allowed to play with other kids.

But if I was left alone in the playground, I became a target for predators — like the person who ran the after-school program and asked me if I wanted to "fool around".

At school I was considered a bad influence and asked to leave. ( Supplied )

My brother and I were taught to resent mainstream society because it resented us. It drove the wedge deeper.

School was a place we were not welcome. Their buildings and walls were not ours. We sprayed graffiti as a way to remind the world that we existed: "TS woz 'ere".

My marks reflected how well I had managed disadvantage

It isn't surprising that school never felt like a place that could measure my academic prowess.

Instead, it measured how well I coped with poverty. It measured how well my mental health withstood the constant assault of predatory men. It measured how well I could assimilate into a world that wasn't my own.

The result? Failure. I don't know why I was surprised.

I was first suspended in Year 2, ironically for wagging class. I was kicked off the softball team for being disruptive in class. I spoke out of turn and skipped class regularly due to bullying.

By Year 10 I had 12 suspensions and dismal grades.

I was told I wasn't very bright and wouldn't amount to much because I didn't "apply myself". I believed it.

All around me was anger, violence and desolation. I was bullied mercilessly, isolated and afraid. So I skipped more classes.

But the fact is that I wanted to knuckle down at school, because just maybe that would mean a better life. I wanted to be something. But by that time my reputation was enough that even a new school wouldn't take me.

The principal let me know: "You can leave or we can expel you — but it would look better if you left."

They didn't want me rubbing off on the other kids.

Those from stable, middle-class homes are more likely to receive high ATAR ranks. ( ABC News: Nicole Chettle )

By 14 I was often homeless. I struggled to study.

I repeated Year 11 at TAFE, but I didn't even walk into some of my exams. I assumed I wouldn't be able to pull them off.

HSC did not do much for me other than teach me how different I was from the world. It was more discouraging than anything. It reinforced the idea that I wasn't enough, that I couldn't be enough to go to university.

This fixation on scores produces a narrative that somehow high school will reflect your life.

I didn't want to reflect my life. Echoes of the life I had lived were evident in my escape from the last man to abuse me in childhood, my PTSD and my depression.

The secret to my success

Eventually I found someone who let me live in their house and treated me decently. I have never left that house.

Their middle-class world and family embraced me, alongside youth services, giving me the support and social capital I needed to engage with healthcare and justice systems in a way that was beneficial to me.

Stability, housing, absence of severe poverty and violence, and increased social capital kept me protected. I was protected from further abuse and exploitation, and I was able to attend therapy regularly.

These things, not a HSC score, enabled my success.

But I did eventually get accepted into university.

It wasn't the HSC that got me there. Instead, I did a Liberal Arts TAFE Certificate. This certificate was enough to allow me to apply for a degree and I wonder to this day what the point was of those HSC exams.

I was accepted into an International Honours Society for being in the top 15 per cent of candidates for my degree. Each semester I would get a letter congratulating me on my grades.

I am now working on my honours thesis as a fast-track to a PhD about how social mobility is hindered or promoted by society.

I am on the board of a youth service. I tutor students, and help to deliver a subject at Melbourne University, to name a few projects.

Youth services helped me see a better future. ( Supplied )

I have accepted many scholarships and awards and I still wonder why people see the ATAR as a measure of merit.

It seems more of a flimsy contrast to justify the myth of meritocracy in an inequitable society. ATAR results measure socialisation or lack thereof, sorting young people by privilege or underprivilege.

Out of place

I still feel out of place at university amongst classes dominated by middle-class peers who haven't lived any semblance of life like mine.

Some may see my success as proof that the system works, but my story is the exception.

The only reason you're reading about it now is because I was lucky enough to escape my adversity, but the many stories of others like me who fall between the cracks get missed or ignored.

I often wonder what happened to everyone else from my estate.

I was lucky enough to escape my adversity, but the many stories of others like me who fall between the cracks get missed or ignored. ( Supplied )

High schools are failing our youth, and end of year score parades are simply fig leaves for those who harbour illusions of meritocracy.

Until this is addressed, the sad truth is that it is better to be born rich than smart.