NCEA

Just as I figured out the English education system, I now have to figure out the New Zealand system, which is completely different than both the US and UK, but just as complex and ridiculous. NCEA stands for National Certificate of Educational Achievement, and it works something like this:

In year 11 (about 15 years old), every child in New Zealand is given NCEA level 1 exams in their chosen subjects, which are graded by a small army of teachers and ranked as "achieved," "merit," "excellence" or "not achieved" (i.e. failed). The results of these exams are then promptly thrown out and never seen again.

In year 12 (16 years old), every child in New Zealand is given NCEA level 2 exams in their chosen subjects, which are similarly graded, ranked and thrown out, never to be seen again.

In year 13 (17 years old), every child in New Zealand is given NCEA level 3 exams in their chosen subjects, which are similarly graded, ranked and then put through a meat grinder to generate a ranking number which determines university admissions.

The meat grinder goes something like this:

1. Each subject contains a number of components, which are worth different credits. For example, an essay may be worth 5 points or an exam may be worth 10 points. You can only count a maximum of 24 points per subject.
2. You can take as many subjects as you wish, but you can only count credits from five subjects.
3. You can only count your "Top 80" credits.  That is, if you got 20 "excellence" credits, 20 "merit" credits and 60 "achieved" credits, then you would count the 20 excellence, 20 merit, and 40 achieved, for a total of 80.
4. You then multiply the number of "excellence" credits by 4, "merit" credits by 3, "achieved" credits by 2, and add them all up.  Using the previous example, that would be 80 excellence, 60 merit and 80 achieved, or 220 points.
5. Universities have their own requirements for each programme, so a Bachelor of Arts degree may require 150 points while a Bachelor of Engineering requires 250 points with 17 credits in Calculus and 16 credits in Physics. 

Of course, even though only the level 3 results count, you can't take the level 3 exams if you haven't passed the level 2 exams, and you can't take those if you haven't passed the level 1 exams, and you have to decide your subjects in year 10 so you can sign up for the right classes in year 11, which means you have to figure out what you want to do in college when you're 14 years old!!

Absolutely insane.