How does it feel to score the highest marks in the Leaving Cert? "Pretty cool" was how Emer McGrath, an 18-year-old student from Mayo, described the sensation yesterday. Seán Flynn, Irish Times Education Editor, reports.
Ms McGrath, a pupil at Ballinrobe Community School, secured 8 A1s (90-100 per cent), the highest marks recorded by any of the 56,000 who sat this year's exam. She scored the highest possible marks in English, maths, French, accounting, biology, physics, chemistry and applied maths. For good measure, she also secured an A2 in ordinary level Irish.
Ms McGrath says that her heroes are people like Einstein and Stephen Hawking, people who have made a difference. Her main interest is in cosmology, but she has also achieved Grade 8 in piano. "I would describe myself as a swotty person," she said. "I just love learning. I have a great hunger for knowledge."
She says she does not come from a particularly academic background. Her father is a local building contractor and her mother works in a bank. Her older brother, who is a civil engineer, also secured a remarkable Leaving Cert, gaining 520 points.
Ms McGrath emphasised that much of the credit should go to her teachers, especially her physics teacher, whom she described as "exceptional". Armed with her 600 CAO points, she is now planning to take theoretical physics at Trinity.
Ms McGrath said that she had expected to do reasonably well in the Leaving - she secured 580 points in her mock exams - but she is still coming to terms with being the State's top student.
Ballinrobe Community School, which has 550 pupils, was established a decade ago as part of an amalgamation between the local convent school, the VEC and the Christian Brothers' school.
The principal, Mr Louis O'Malley, described Emer as an exceptional talent. "You very rarely come across someone of this calibre. It shows what you can achieve no matter where you are . . . if you have the benefit of really good teachers and if you put in the work."