Academics

In between athletics and music, Mulan and Miya also do a bit of academic stuff.

Miya:

Last year (2024), Miya finished homeschooling and started secondary school, entering Year 9 at Westlake Girls High School.

It all went well, and at the end of the year she got distinction in Maths, Music, Science and Social Studies, as well as Year 9 Academic Excellence.  She collected her certificates on stage at the end-of-year prizegiving.

This year for Year 10 she chose Music, Dance and Fabric Technology (ie sewing) as her three optional subjects.  She was selected into the Maths Extension class, and is also doing English, Science, Social Studies, PE and Health.

Term 1 has just finished, and Miya is having a relaxing school holiday.

Mulan:

Last year was Mulan's final year at secondary school.  Alongside sitting NCEA 3 in Music, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, she also decided to have a go at Scholarship in Music, Biology and Chemistry.

Scholarship is pretty difficult.  Only the top students in New Zealand attempt it, and only about 3% of those who attempt it get it.  Our advice to Mulan was to just treat it as a fun learning experience, and a good introduction to how university learning will likely be.

Delightfully, she got Scholarship Music, and her marks were close in Biology and Chemistry.  Westlake Girls acknowledged the Scholarship winners early this year at a prizegiving.

But the priority for Mulan was to do well enough in her NCEA 3 courses to get into her preferred university course.

By midway through the year Mulan had decided that she wanted to go to Auckland University and do a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science (and continue living at home).

Entry into Biomed requires at least 280 points in NCEA 3 courses, which is higher than most other university courses (eg, a normal BSc requires 165 points).  Roughly, this meant that she needed to get at least 40 excellence credits and 40 merit credits at NCEA 3.

Happily, Mulan got what she needed, and was accepted into Auckland Uni Biomed.

At the moment Mulan doesn't yet know what she wants to specialise in.  She enjoys biology and chemistry, and there are lots of different directions it could take her.

This year Mulan has been kept busy with her studies.  There's a lot of content to learn, and when she's not at uni she's often in her room studying.  It's now mid-semester break and no classes, but unlike Miya most days she's still working.