I'm currently sitting here trying to get into the
New Zealand Qualifications Authority website but for some reason it ain't working. My suspicion is that there are thousands of
eighteen year olds across
NZ trying to do the same thing.
Now you my be asking your self why thousands of eighteen year olds across NZ trying to do the same thing? The reason is that are out today the University Bursaries results will be out and we can all find out how the next five or so years of our lives will progress.
The University Bursaries exams are sat at the end of your last year of high school. You sit an exam for each subject (in my case five). Then around this time you should receive the results. Based on what you get decides whether you have automatic entry into University. I'm pretty sure I have that (you only have to get over 46% in three subjects). But what I'm worried about is how high my scores are.
If I can get over 300 combined score over five subjects I get what is called an A Bursary. It is basically a label because the only cash award is $NZ200 for three years! And if I can get high enough I get direct entry into some harder papers at University - a huge bonus and saver of money.
But I'm still waiting here. I've finally got to the page that allows me to log in after waiting ten minutes at another page so I could get to that one. The results aren't probably there but I continue waiting on the off chance they are. I could of course ring the 0900 number (pay by the minute) but then I wouldn't have the fun of writing this while I wait would I?
And at the same time I waiting for an email from Dell to tell me that they've shipped my new computer. Couldn't believe it when my Dad was purchasing it online as he had to answer a question as to whether he was going to use it for the manufacturing of Weapons of Mass Destruction? What rogue state or terrorist organisation is going to answer that question truthfully?
Update
It is good to see that NZQA is prepared. I'm currently getting
500 Internal Server Error when I try to log in, probably meaning that
every man and his dog is trying to do the same thing. I can imagine some meeting where they decided that it would be fun to try and let every person find out there results over the internet but we won't go and hire out some extra bandwidth or however one does it (as you can see I have no knowledge of the intricate workings of hosting a site). No we'll just let everybody suffer.
After four hours of trying I finally found out my results:
Chemistry 65%
French 46%
Calculus 63%
Statistics 85%
Physics 64%
This means I get into University and have an A Bursary!
Today it came out in the paper that only
3000 people had got their results by 4 pm
NZ time - some
seven hours after they had been released and some people still had not got theirs by 9 pm that night. I can't imagine what it will be like in a weeks time when the
National Certificate in Educational Achievement comes out. Then there will be over 130,000 students wanting results instead of the 28,000 for
Bursary.