KEY POINTS:
Auckland twins Jess and Ange Ward managed to keep their cool before they got their exam results yesterday - but both cracked a smile after checking them online.
Almost 22,000 students logged in to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority's website over five hours yesterday to finally get their marks.
The NZQA posted results on Wednesday to the 139,000 high school candidates to sit the National Certificate of Educational Achievement last year.
It expected most of the letters to arrive in mailboxes yesterday - but in Auckland it appeared few had reached their destination.
With results available on the website from noon, the Ward twins went online instead of waiting another day to find out.
Jess was particularly relieved by her results - which saw the 16-year-old Avondale College student pass National Certificate of Educational Achievement Level 2 with merit - because she was in a car crash just five days before exams started.
Despite going to hospital and ending up with 35 stitches on her face, she was back at school the day after the crash.
Jess, an aspiring vet, took English and maths with statistics at NCEA Level 3, a year early, and was pleased with the outcome. One blot was a Shakespeare component, which she believed she didn't pass because she "forgot the quotes".
Jess and Ange said they weren't competitive when it came to exams and each had their own strengths.
Ange got enough credits through internal assessments to pass Level 2 before sitting exams. The position meant she could relax over summer and not worry about her results.
"I wasn't really worried because I had already passed anyway," she said. "And I'm not aiming for a merit or excellence certificate."
Malcolm Richardson is pretty sure that he is on the path to studying medicine after getting his exam results yesterday.
"I should hope so - this should be good enough," said the 17-year-old, who was head boy at Mt Albert Grammar School last year.
He wants to get into biomedical science at the University of Auckland. A scholarship from the university, valued at up to $50,000, will help ease his study path.
Malcolm took his first NCEA Level 3 papers two years early, when he was in Year 11, and managed to get enough credits to pass the level in 2006 by taking English and calculus.
His hours studying last year were to raise his marks and broaden his Level 3 subjects to include sciences, German and maths with statistics.
A trip to the Cook Islands, where his mother Moeroa comes from, helped take his mind off the results.
"I thought about exams for the first week after they were over," said Malcolm, who works as a swimming instructor. "When I found out the results were coming out this week I started worrying about it again."
NZQA deputy chief executive of qualifications Bali Haque said for the first time result notices showed if candidates qualified to get their certificate endorsed with merit or excellence.
The change was one of a series of improvements to NCEA announced in May last year.
To qualify for an excellence endorsement, students need 50 credits at excellence while a merit requires 50 credits at merit.
Mr Haque said the rates of endorsement were in line with expectations from an earlier analysis that showed in previous years 17 to 26 per cent of candidates across levels 1-3 would have got a merit endorsement and 3 to 6 per cent would have got an excellence.
NCEA exam papers are due to be returned to candidates this month.
New Zealand Scholarship results will be available in mid-February.
National and school statistics, which can show how schools compared to the national average, will be available by April after verification by schools.
NCEA RESULTS
Level 1
* 49,132 candidates passed.
* 11,277 - or 23 per cent - got a merit endorsement.
* 2579 - or 5.2 per cent - got an excellence endorsement.
Level 2
* 39,680 candidates passed.
* 6690 - or 16.9 per cent - got a merit endorsement.
* 1517 - or 3.8 per cent - got an excellence endorsement.
Level 3
* 20,489 candidates passed.
* 4272 - or 20.9 per cent - got a merit endorsement.
* 867 - or 4.2 per cent - got an excellence endorsement.
Source: NZ Qualifications Authority
