Nearly 57,000 secondary school students received their Leaving Certificate results yesterday, with 2,928 students receiving their results in Galway.
The mood outside St Enda’s College on Threadneedle Road yesterday morning was one of excitment, relief, and pleasant surprises, as one student, checking his results paper, declared aloud “Oh did I not fail that!” Though many students chose to head straight from the school door to their parents’ cars to find out their results in private, some got it over with in the car park.
Cousins Kevin Horgan and Eoghan Miniter both achieved 430 points, with both succeeding in obtaining their first choices of science and Arts at NUIG respectively.
Emily Gleeson, accompanied by her mother Pauline, was even more jubilant having got her first choice of law at NUIG. Despite the high spirits, Emily claimed that the worry over results loomed over her until the last hour. “I stressed cleaned until four in the morning,” she explained, having tidied her house obsessively to deal with the panic. “I’m glad it’s all over,” she concluded, “I cried.”
Slightly calmer were siblings Anraoi and Colette Whyte from Barna. Colette, who received 585 points, hopes to study animation at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, while Anraoi, who came dressed in his overalls from the garage, is hoping to do an apprenticeship in mechanics. They both described the ordeal’s end as “a pleasant shock”.
According to figures, the number sitting the Leaving Cert has increased by 2.4 per cent from 55,577 candidates in 2013 to 56,990 in 2014
However, for many, the stress is not yet over. Thousands of students will be appealing their results through their schools, looking for a boost in their grades. The deadline for appeal applications is 5pm on Wednesday September 3 2014, with results being issued in mid-October.
Leaving Certificate exam results are available online at www.examinations.ie, or by calling 1530 716016.
