There were scenes of jubilation around Mullingar earlier this week as the Leaving Cert class of 2009 returned to school for the final time to pick up their exam results.
With the first round of CAO college offers due on Monday, students now have just a few days’ wait to find out if their hard-earned results are enough to gain entry to the course of their choice.
Local schools reported high levels of satisfactory results, with many students’ results at odds with the national trend of falling numbers of A grades.
Two students at St Mary's CBS in Mullingar picked up the highest possible points total of 600 - Yemi Soile from Rochfortbridge and Stephen Connolly from Balinafid.
Meanwhile principal of Loreto College, Mullingar, Angela McGarvey, said staff there were delighted with students’ results, in particular one student who achieved 600 points.
“We are generally delighted with both the established Leaving Cert and Leaving Cert Applied results,” said Ms McGarvey.
“One student excelled with 600 points, and a significant number got over 500 or over 400 points.
“We are particularly impressed that all students achieved their potential or above their potential.”
Some 57,455 Leaving Certificate candidates across the country received their examination results on Wednesday morning this week.
Of these, 50,883 were school-leavers, 4,361 were external candidates and 2,211 repeat candidates.
Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe congratulated students, parents, and teachers following the release of the results, and urged students who performed well in the Leaving Cert to consider courses in the science, technology and engineering
