Rangitoto College is, once again, top of New Zealand when it comes to the NZQA Scholarship Exam results. These exams are demanding assessments, designed to challenge the most able of students. With 106 students in 2019 across Years 12 and 13 gaining 191 scholarships, three Premier Scholarship Award winners, three Outstanding Scholars and one Top in the Country Subject Award, the 2019 cohort of students have continued to build on the success of the last two years. 191 Scholarships is an increase from the 174 that were gained in 2018 and the 173 in 2017 and the magical 200 is well within our sights.
A minimum of four Scholarships at “Outstanding” level, or a minimum of three Scholarships at “Outstanding” level, with two or more additional Scholarships is the baseline criteria for a Premier Award and only 12 are handed out across the country. Our three Premier award winners were our 2019 Dux, Tessa Herkt, alongside Raymond Zhang and Noah Ferguson-Dudding. These three students have worked extremely hard and thoroughly deserve the $30,000 they will each receive across the three years of their tertiary study. The College congratulates them on their phenomenal academic success and we look forward to seeing them receive their awards in Wellington later this year.
Nationally, 35 Outstanding Scholar awards are given to students who gain a minimum of three Scholarships with two or three at "Outstanding" level, or at least five Scholarships with one at "Outstanding" level. Rangitoto's Outstanding Award recipients, Davit Choi, Amy Crawford and Friederike Voit all will receive $15,000 across the three years of their study. Friederike, who was in Year 12 last year when she sat the exams, also gained the prestigious award of Top in the County for Scholarship Art History, receiving $6000 for the next three years of study, which is an outstanding accomplishment by a student sitting the exams a year early. Friederike will join the Premier Award winners in Wellington later this year to receive her award.
Rangitoto’s talented staff work very hard and often put in many hours outside timetabled classes to run extra sessions to support the teaching and preparation of students for Scholarship Exams. There were some notable highlights across the College, with Rangitoto College Art History students gaining seven out of the 26 Scholarships awarded nationally and students who sat the Chinese Scholarship exam received nine of the 27 awarded across New Zealand. There were a number of other excellent results for subjects such as biology, where students gained 27 passes, which was close to a 100% increase on 2018 results, as well as photography with six Scholarship passes. We thank all the staff who have put in the time and energy to teach, mark and encourage our students within the Scholarship programmes we run.
Many students gained multiple Scholarships, and in addition to those mentioned, we would like to honour Ji Hoon Lee and Michaela Ryan-Lentini who each gained five Scholarships, with Sophie Chan, Mei Sen Chan, Amy Crawford, Zijin Ping, Joyce Yang and Nickolas Petranovic gaining four each. 2019 saw more Year 12 students taking part in the Scholarships Exams than ever before. Buoyed by the strong culture of excellence that has developed at the College, Scholarship Exam passes were gained by 30 Year 12 students with a total of 39 Scholarships gained. There were also some outstanding individual results, with Noah Ferguson-Dudding gaining 23/24 for English and 22/24 for physical education; Friederike Voit gained 23/24 for art history; Connor Rice gained 22/24 for painting and Raymond Zhang gained 29/32 for chemistry.
Well done to all of our fantastic students who took part in Scholarship in 2019 and a special congratulations to all who gained a successful result.
