Dear Macleans College,

I see this statement presented on the school news articles:

"The Dux prize for 202X is awarded to the Macleans College student who achieved the highest grades in the annual NZQA Scholarship examinations."

How is this ranked? I see that the Dux for 2023 has received 10 scholarships in the examinations. This qualifies as "Scholarship Award" by NZQA, being 3+ scholarships with no Outstanding.

Similarly, the Proxime Accessit received 5 scholarships in the examinations with no Outstanding, qualifying under the same category.

However I see that two students gained Scholarship in three or more subjects, including an Outstanding Scholarship. Looking deeper one can find that they each received one Outstanding and 3 normal scholarships, for a total of four.

This implies that 5 normal scholarships is greater than 4 including an Outstanding, which could be viewed subjectively with doubt. Therefore, I request information on the specifics of how Dux, Proxime Accessit, is chosen and with what criteria.

Yours faithfully,

Benjamin Nguyen