But she has proved to the sceptics she definitely can — dyslexia and all.
The Taieri College 17-year-old is now leaving school to attend Otago Polytechnic, where she will study a bachelor of architecture this year.
Madison has dyslexia, which for her, makes reading and writing difficult, but the "amazing" support from her Taieri College teachers through her secondary school experience was instrumental in making it all happen, she said.
"I’ve had so many teachers who didn’t push me into the ‘too hard’ basket.
"They just said, ‘I don’t care what you need from me, I’ll get it for you to help you succeed’.
"My art teacher did a bunch of research herself into dyslexia so she could better understand it and me."
The results spoke for themselves, and Madison’s painting and design boards both received excellence in NCEA level 3.
Her painting board was loosely inspired by her great-grandparents’ experiences in World War 1.
"My first idea was to portray a love story plus war, but when we looked deeper, we found that my great-grandparents were dating before the war, then afterwards they got married, so the story is inspired by them."
In the board, a map of her great-grandparents’ hometown of Mataura could be seen — her great-grandfather was the station master of the town before he headed off to Egypt in WW1.
The board also incorporated a lot of lavender — the colour and the flower — as a homage to the scenes her great-grandparents saw while growing up.
Madison said it was sad there was still a stigma around students with dyslexia.
She said when people first heard she had jumped ahead to NCEA level 3 they told her "you can’t be dyslexic if you’re doing that".
"We just struggle to read — we’re no less intelligent."
Madison said she would be "just a smidge" younger than the rest of her cohort at polytechnic, but there was no use doing year 13 for her.
"My friends are all very excited to return to Taieri College ... they’ll have to join me later."
