KEY POINTS:
Rachel Wong and Josh Patience are going from Macleans College to Auckland University to start law and commerce degrees.
It's the same departure point, and the same destination, but both took different directions to get there.
Rachel's marks will come from her Cambridge International Examination results and Josh's
will be from National Certificate in Educational Achievement.
Both had the same choice in 2004 when they were in Year 11 - either NCEA or Cambridge. For Josh, NCEA won out, partly because at that time Macleans did not offer accounting in Cambridge.
"But NCEA is more similar to going to university, with internal assessments throughout the year and an exam at the end.
"In the workplace I don't think you get a job where the whole thing comes down to one three-hour event at the end of the year."
Rachel chose Cambridge after she sat the Year 11 maths paper as a Year 10 student in an accelerated maths class.
"They found we could handle it and it seemed natural from there to carry on with Cambridge. I was quite used to the system of exams by then, anyway."
Josh said offering two qualifications could also divide a school, and the students doing NCEA were perceived as the dummies.
"I remember in fifth form when I had to decide. If someone was doing Cambridge, people would say, 'Wow, I never knew they were smart.' Just because you do it doesn't make you more intelligent. But the mentality was the Cambridge kids were smart and if you did NCEA you were less intelligent.
"I think it's unacceptable to have three major different secondary qualifications in a country. There should be just one. Most of my friends do Cambridge and I'm probably on a par with them academically.
"But everyone thinks NCEA is basically for the stupid people only."
The perception was partly because the school had initially encouraged only the more academic students into Cambridge.
Now the gap has decreased - about 60 per cent of the school take Cambridge and as long as they pass a minimum standard, any student can choose to do it.
For Rachel, the decision also came down to different strokes for different folks.
She preferred the exam system, rather than internal assessments. "It's a lot less hassle than having to worry about collecting credits, which my friends in NCEA say is quite complicated."
She approved of the first-year restrictions being dropped.
"It's probably fairer, with all the different qualifications. Exam marks don't really reflect how good a debater you are or things like that, so maybe giving everyone a shot at first year is a good opportunity."
Josh and his friends had often debated the merits of the two systems and in the long term, he didn't believe it made a difference.
"The content is similar. I don't think I've been disadvantaged by doing NCEA."
But he thought more distinct marks needed to be given to encourage hard work, rather than sorting students into such broad bands as "achieved" and "merit".
"They need to give percentage marks and the whole debate would die off. Whether you just pass or you pass well, you get the same amount of credits. How can you lump a whole country of students into four categories?"
