'Party animals' get 6 A's each
2005-12-29 10:07
Pietermaritzburg - Nobody was more surprised with their results than five matrics from Maritzburg College who had partied hard just before the final exams.
When Jamie Cooke, Jaryd Greyling, Randall Hammond, Gareth Shimmon and and Oliver Humphries heard that they each obtained six A's they were surprised, but thought someone was playing a joke on them.
The five, who are good friends and socialise together out of school, said they crammed most of their school work days before the exams started.
They all had thought the papers were difficult. Humphries, an accomplished sportsman, said he didn't have much time to study as sport kept him occupied for most of the year.
Out of the 7 049 Independent Examination Board candidates, including private and part-time pupils, 1 300 obtained A-aggregates.
Ninety candidates achieved seven or more distinctions, 148 got six distinctions and 164 five distinctions.
Accepted at Harvard University
The IEB reported that this year's pass rate was down exactly 1% with 98.1% in comparison to last year's 99.1% pass.
One of the Durban IEB's top 50 pupils, William Scott, already has been accepted to study maths and science at Harvard University in the United States.
Top pupil at Kearsney College, William is modest about his
achievement and, although he has been an academic genius from the beginning of his schooling career, was surprised with his results.
Durban Girl's College's Kumari Naidoo, who was also dux of her school, was breathless when told she had been in the top 50.
She has been accepted provisionally to study medicine in Durban.
Pietermaritzburg IEB schools also had a number of pupils in the top 50.
St John's pupil Toni-Lee Sterley, who was the dux at her school, was one of them.
Toni-Lee plans to begin a general BSc degree, perhaps leaning towards microbiology.
Dux of St Anne's, Megan Beckett has plans of going to the University of Cape Town, where she hopes to study for a BSc in chemical molecular science.
Crawford College La Lucia's Marco Coetzee, who obtained eight distinctions - English (HG), Afrikaans (HG), maths (HG),
computer studies (HG), accounting (HG), history (HG), music (HG) and music performance (HG) - is looking forward to studying accounting at the University of Pretoria.
Wona full bursary
Danielle Lavan, who was ranked first at North Coast College, also got eight distinctions - English (HG), Afrikaans (HG), maths (HG), biology (HG), physical science (HG), geography (HG), history (HG) and additional maths (HG).
She plans to study actuarial science at the University of Cape Town on a full bursary from Old Mutual.
Her classmate, Shamir Harilal, also achieved eight distinctions - English (HG), Afrikaans (HG), maths (HG), computer studies (HG), physical science (HG), accounting (HG), business economics (HG) and additional mathematics (HG).
Shamir told the Witness he would be staying local and would study accounting at the University of Natal.