NCEA misery as site jammed

Former City College Year 13 student Ryan de Ruyter, 18, was celebrating his four Level three NCEA passes for 2012, all with an overall Merit Excellence Endorsement for the whole year.

Ryan flew through economics, statistics, chemistry and English.

But yesterday there was a downside, because it took him six-and-half hours before he could log on to the site where the results were posted and find out his results as thousands of others sought their results, too.

It was a huge exercise in frustration, he said.

"It was worse, though, because my girlfriend logged on just two minutes before me and got her results and that was it ... I couldn't get on for nearly seven hours. It was terrible."

The postal results were not out until the end of next week.

Ryan plans to go to Massey University this year, majoring in economics. He said his excellent NCEA results would certainly help pave the way. "Yeah, I'm pretty pleased, I have to say."