You have totted up the figures and things are not so grim after all. An unlucky grade here, a flukey grade there, and the rest are as you envisaged in your top secret plan for world domination.
Maybe strikes are not so bad after all, some of you may even muse ironically.
So where to next?
Well, for most students, who seem to have done exceptionally well, Tuesday is the biggest hurdle on the way to third level with the first round of CAO offers. The cut-off points for every course in the CAO will be published on that day.
You should get a letter from the CAO that morning but if you want to cut out the agonising wait, log onto www.cao.ie at 6 a.m.
You can accept your place on that site too. So you could have the whole transaction completed before your bleary-eyed parents come down to breakfast. Of course nobody advises you to do that.
Use the online option of course, but do not do anything rash, and discuss the options with your parents or teachers.
You may very well receive two offers on Tuesday - one from the degree list and one from the certificate/diploma list. You may also get up to three offers from the nursing list. But most of you will either get one or two offers.
The important date after Tuesday is August 29th. That is the "reply date", when the CAO needs to know whether you are accepting the places or not. The notice you send to the CAO will come next Tuesday also.
Simply fill it out and send it back by 5.15 p.m. on August 29th. That 5.15 is not, as one caller inquired an "Irish 5.15" but a strict deadline.
Make sure you send the offer you actually want. Examine it closely beforehand and get a certificate of posting. One problem which the online service has thrown up is confusion between parents and their children.
The CAO is worried that a son or daughter, most likely abroad, may accept a certain offer online while his or her poor parents are posting another one to CAO headquarters in Galway. The CAO has a simple solution - it accepts the latest offer it receives.
But if one arm of the family is not aware of what the other arm is doing the consequences could be grave. So clear communication between all those involved in the CAO process is required.
If the offer you get is not what you want, don't despair. It may come in the second round of offers, issued on Tuesday, September 4th.
The points for many courses come down between round one and two. Particularly if you missed your favoured course by five points or because of random selection.
If you are 10 or 20 points off the first round total you may have to start thinking about kissing goodbye to that first preference but in the CAO never say never.
The most jaded phrase of the CAO process is, "You can go up but you cannot go down." Pupils will have heard it from their teachers on numerous occasions but it is important.
It means that if you accept a round one offer you can still get another from further up your list but you cannot get one from further down. So the best way to approach that first-round offer is to think nothing ventured nothing lost.
The second round acceptances must be with the CAO by Monday, September 10th, at 5.15 p.m. After that come further rounds of offers, although the whole process ends on October 17th.
Based on this year's bumper figures, most students must know they have done well but how well?
The answer will come on Tuesday when the CAO issues the offers.
In a sense the nervous waiting this year will be more intense than previous years. Having a glittering set of results often increases the superstition among students.
With the improved grades many students will be more confident of getting their first preference than before. Students whose first choice was more speculative than real now believe their hopes are well founded.
The only question reverberating in exam students' homes for the next few days - apart from, where is the aspirin? - is, what will the points be?
The Irish Times exam diarist Sarah Caraher summed up the insatiable appetite for information about the points yesterday when she said: "Any inside info on engineering in NUI Galway send this way please." Thousands of students would welcome even a scintilla of inside information at this stage.
Well, this column will not be divulging any, but tomorrow we will look at previous years and some rough indicators of which way the points will swing.