NICE SURPRISES:A ROMANIAN national who achieved 570 points in her Leaving Certificate examinations plans to study science at Trinity College Dublin in the autumn.
Diana Morosan, a student of Plunkett College in Whitehall, Dublin, described her overall results as a "nice surprise".
The student, who moved to Ireland two years ago from Suceava in northern Romania, achieved three A1 grades in higher level maths, biology and Romanian.
Elizabeth Akello from Uganda also sat the Leaving Cert for at the school. "I was very nervous coming in. My results still haven't sunk in yet," she said. Ms Akello hopes she will have enough points to study nursing.
The school, which is one of the largest providers of repeat Leaving Cert courses in Ireland, had more than 100 repeat students this year.
One of them, John Close from Glasnevin, was among the first to collect his results yesterday.
"I came in early at around 9am to get my results, and they wouldn't give them to me till 10am so it was pretty nerve-wracking. I'm pretty chuffed though," he said. Mr Close achieved 430 points in the examinations, a jump of 225 points on his Leaving Cert results last year.
Also delighted with his results was repeat student Seán Kirwan, who scored 370 points. He was especially thrilled with his geography C1 result, as he had to sit the exam shortly after discovering his car had been badly vandalised.
"I went out to the car park after the Leaving Cert maths exam to discover paint had been thrown over my car, with the tyres slashed and the windows smashed. I then had to go back inside and sit my geography exam," he said.
Mr Kirwan said he failed maths and physics the first time so he was thrilled to pass them both this time round, especially considering he scored an A2 in physics.
Gavin Hillick said he felt "fantastic" about his results: "I expected about 300 points, which I need to study science at UCD, so I was thrilled to discover I'd obtained 385 points." Mr Hillick said the results were a big improvement on his total last year of 90 points, adding "there will be huge celebrations tonight".
The school was not all smiles though. Seán Gibney of Coolock in Dublin said he was disappointed with his results but admitted: "I wasn't really approaching the exams too seriously."
Also unhappy with his results was David Parnell from Kilmessan, Co Meath. He said he had studied very hard for the last year and commuted a long distance to and from school each day.
Plunkett College principal Kevin O'Meara said the results were generally good this year, but admitted that "some students will be disappointed, obviously".