Former Columba College student Clara Ballantyne was one of 12 students across New Zealand to receive a premier award from NZQA for scholarship exams last year.
Miss Ballantyne said it felt great to be one of New Zealand’s top high school scholars but she was very surprised.
"I didn’t feel that I had done that well in my exams actually.
"It’s quite a shock — obviously a good one."
She got a perfect score in scholarship history and English and was the top scholar in the country for the subjects.
She also received an outstanding award in statistics and art history and a scholarship in geography as well.
Miss Ballantyne said it did not take as much work as you would expect to get the scholarships.
An accumulation of reading around the subjects she was interested in over the years fed into her knowledge of them for the exams.
She said she had to be self-motivated to study for the exams outside of her regular course work.
As a result, she would receive $10,000 every year for the first three years of her undergraduate degree.
She was going to the University of Auckland to study population health, which was a pre-medicine degree, but she was not on the medical track, she said.
"I’m more interested in the New Zealand health system at a macro level."
She was interested in the way the country’s mental health system operated and making a difference.
King’s High School was the most successful school for scholarship subjects in Otago and Southland, receiving an impressive 50 awards across 16 subjects.
It was third across all secondary schools in the South Island and in sixth place nationally for boys’ secondary schools.
Rector Nick McIvor said the high number of scholarship results was due to the quality of the school’s teaching staff and their ability to enthuse, motivate, influence and develop the complexity of skills needed for the boys to take charge of their lives.
