Girl sees stars with seven top passes

Molly Davey, a pupil at Skipton Girls High School, achieved six straight A*s in her A-level exams and another of the new top grades in her extended project.

The new top grade was awarded for the first time yesterday to allow the country's strongest universities to identify the most able candidates.

Hymers College pupil Stephanie Willis, 18, earned six A*s in biology, chemistry, general studies, maths, further maths and physics.

She was not able to collect her results at the private school in Hull, yesterday, as she is currently on holiday more than 6,000 thousand miles away in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

When she returns she can look forward to going to Cambridge University to study engineering.

Her mother, North Lincolnshire GP Dr Benedicte Iuel, said: "Stephanie is such an all-rounder and always has time to do all sorts of things. I am extremely proud of her. She is a very special girl."

David Elstone, headmaster at Hymers said: "We are extremely proud of Stephanie's outstanding achievements.

"She has been an excellent role model for younger pupils – not only working extremely hard but also managing her time successfully to allow her to represent the school at first team level in both hockey and tennis."

She was among several Hymers students to gain new A* grades.

Amit Chawla, 18, got five A*s – in maths, further maths, chemistry, biology and general studies and will go to Imperial College London to study medicine. After graduating he wants to work as a doctor, following his father.

Hymers' pupil Yewen Qin, 18, also picked up five A*s and is now planning a career in medicine which he is set to study at Kings College in London. His A*s were achieved in biology, chemistry, physics, maths and general studies

He said: "There is a lot of pressure when you see things in the news saying 'who would want to be 18 today' because of the difficulties people face getting into university now and I think the A* will add to the pressure for future students."

Sheffield High School's star performer was Mollika Chakravorty who picked up five A*s – but what made her achievement even more impressive was that she sat the exams a year early, at 17-years-old.

She achieved A*s in biology, chemistry, maths, further maths and physics and is now going on to study medicine in her home city at Sheffield University.

Mollika, from Greystones in Sheffield said: "I was predicted the A* stars but I was surprised when I got them all. It is not easy to get the high grades so you just have to work as hard as you can."