Carla Vendrell, a young woman from Olot (la Garrotxa), is the student who has achieved the highest grade in the university entrance exams in Catalonia. Neither more nor less than a 10, impossible to do better. The second best score (9.90) is shared by seven students, four from Barcelona and three from Tarragona.
Carla (also Paula, Joel, Sergi, Quim, Elsa, Edgar and Guillem) knew this morning that they were the most excellent Catalan students. There are three girls and five boys (a proportion by gender inverse to previous years) who are also joined by the highest grades by province. In Lleida, María Llobera has obtained a 9.80 and in Girona the highest marks have been obtained by Blai Higueras and Júlia Fita, with 9.70.
They are all success stories based on study and perseverance, sports, reading and friends. And in schools that have accompanied them until the last day. This morning, instead of preparing the festival, they see themselves attending to the media while receiving hugs from their parents and messages of joy from their siblings, grandparents, cousins, friends and teachers. “Congratulations!”. “I can’t send you the photo because I don’t stop, you don’t know how many calls, how many messages…”. Answer one of them that, finally, complies.
These are their stories:
In his 18 years he has already climbed two summits. She is the 2021 roller skating world champion and, two years later, 10 in the PAU. She has not made a single mistake in any of the subjects. “Surely the solid and constant work that skating demands has helped me to obtain this grade”, she explains from Cala Blanca, a beach in Menorca where she is with five of her friends, enjoying the rest. It is noon and she is still in her pajamas, patiently answering the journalists’ questions.
This young woman from Olota, a student at the La Garrotxa institute for a humanistic and social baccalaureate (why give up math or Latin?), wants to study law at Pompeu Fabra (UPF) next year. “I have always felt an attraction to the world of laws, public order.”
He does not know what he will specialize in but he gives himself room to discover it throughout the degree. “I did a lot of research before enrolling at UPF and I think that, although all universities are good, this is the one I’m going to like the most”. Confident 100% that she will enter the grade, she has not even looked at how much she has obtained in the specific phase: “Maybe a thirteen with seven or eight, or maybe with nine, but I don’t care, I already know that I enter”
Paula confesses to La Vanguardia that she is “very happy” and that she did not expect to get such a high grade. She admits, however, that she has studied quite a bit, both in the weeks leading up to the exams and throughout the course. Her constancy in her study is carried in her genes: her mother is a biology teacher and her father is a civil engineer.
She affirms that her friends trusted her possibilities more than she herself. “The grade I’ve gotten is like a reward for all the work,” she underlines.
He wants to study biomedical engineering at the University of Barcelona (UB). Thanks to the grades she has achieved, she has room to access this degree, whose cut-off grade last year was around 12.70, she says.
Joel is another of the students who has achieved the highest score in these PAU (9.90). Like Paula, he confesses that he still doesn’t believe it. “I’m very happy. I knew that I had done well, but I did not expect a note like this at all ”.
The son of computer scientists, he says that the key is, obviously, to study the weeks before the exam but, above all, “to have worked for the last two years.”
Although it was difficult for him to decide what he wanted to study, he affirms that he already has it clear. He wants to take a degree in philosophy, politics and economics taught jointly by UPF, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ??the Autonomous University of Madrid and Carlos III, also in the Spanish capital.
He explains that it is a degree that is not very established in Spain but “that has quite a tradition in countries like the United Kingdom because it offers transversal knowledge between different disciplines.” Thanks to the average between the grades obtained in the PAU and the baccalaureate, you will have no problems accessing these studies, which last year had a cut-off grade of 12.70.
His mother was the one who sat down at the computer to look at the PAU note on the Canal Universitats platform when they were told on Wednesday that they could now consult it. “I saw her amazed face. She looked at me without speaking. There were only a few seconds in which I did not know what had happened. You can never be completely confident. And I needed a high note. ‘Oh, mother!’, she said excitedly. I ran, but the platform collapsed and I couldn’t see the note. She told me”. That’s how it was on Wednesday, he learned her note. Very high, bordering on excellence, but without knowing what was happening with the rest of the students who showed up. Today he woke up with the news that, in addition, he is one of the highest scores in Catalonia.
A good student, a lover of science, he wants to study the double degree in mathematics and physics or mathematics and computer science, both careers with few places, so the cut-off mark usually rises to more than a 13. He has achieved an average of a 13,692.
“I have not presented the pre-registration for the race because I did not know if I would have a sufficient grade. So now I’m a little nervous, between the calls from the press and that I have to sign up, I know I have until June 30, but…”.
It is Quim’s mother who answers the call from La Vanguardia. “She still doesn’t know anything,” she replies. “She’s in Menorca and I guess she hasn’t woken up.” Quim wants to study the double degree of mathematics and computer engineering at the UB for which he needed to score more than 13 in Selectividad. He knew that he had no problems with the specific part (the optional subjects), but he had to ensure the general phase. “He has pushed a lot this year,” explains Núria Gonzalvo, who acts as spokesperson for him “and the result is that both the high school grades and the PAU grades are very good.”
Quim has studied at the Ramar institute. There he presented a high school research project, shared with another classmate, very attractive: a program that allows remote control of a car using a mobile phone.
Judo practitioner, math is his passion. His mother explains that he “organizes his time very well, he is very responsible, cheerful, a friend of his friends…”.
Quim wakes up shortly after noon. “It is that they are the festivals of Sant Joan”, justifies the time of dawn from Ciutadella.
This is the first stop of a summer with friends, hopping from city to city, taking advantage of the discount on the Renfe voucher that gives train journeys half price. “You have to take advantage of it, it’s very cheap.”
Elsa answers the mobile with the sound of the sea in the background, from Menorca, already on vacation with some friends. You have to celebrate it. “I was kayaking,” she says, smiling. She answers calls from journalists with joy, without rushing. “I have a lot of calls from numbers I don’t know.” Happy with her note, which she assures “she did not expect”, she looks at the summer with a crazy desire to do a thousand things, after a course of a few resignations.
He has studied a double baccalaureate, the international and the humanistic-social. Her plan is to do a double university degree in translation and applied languages ??at UPF. “I would like to work as a translator,” she says. English and French are her favorite languages ??and she also loves literature. At 17 years old, she already has clear ideas. A charming voice and a positive character that is obvious. “I want to make the most of the summer.” Menorca is only the first stop. She already thinks about having time to recover one of her great hobbies, literature.
With a little brother in 2nd ESO, she is fond of yoga and drawing, “all artistic things”. She has had enough energy to do two selectivities, the international baccalaureate, in May, and the current selectivity in June. “I still don’t know the note about Internacional.” When she reads, she chooses Catalan literature from the 20th century, with reference authors such as Montserrat Roig, but also contemporary with Catalan, Spanish and American authors.
“I’ve always gotten good grades, but I didn’t expect so much,” he says. He has completed the scientific-technological baccalaureate and has the soul of a physicist. He is very clear about it: a physics degree next year at the UB. “I really like the universe and astrophysics,” he says. “I see myself in a laboratory, it seems very nice to discover things”, he adds.
Disciplined and organized, he explains that he always brings his subjects up to date and that he doesn’t study much the days before exams. He did the same on sele. The good student’s manual, or just the opposite of what most mortals do. “I am constant, I am up to date,” he explains. He prefers to study alone, at home, where he finds concentration and feels comfortable.
“My passion is music”, he emphasizes. He is a percussionist and also plays the piano. “I had to choose, it was not easy, but in the end I chose physics, although music will continue with me.” Eclectic, he listens to a bit of everything, especially pop and rock, as well as classical, and flees from one style: “Everything but reggaeton,” he laughs.
An only child, he will dedicate the summer to his passion, music, playing in bands and orchestras in Tarragona. He is a regular musician in the Tarragona Municipal Band and in a few days he will go to camps, also musicals. His, the notes and planets. The future will tell who ends up winning or if, like now, they are two complementary universes.
Organized and with a strategic mind, he explains how the selectivity was proposed, previously analyzing which subjects he had worse, to which he had to dedicate more efforts, and which were almost ready, with only a few revisions to go. “I worked more, especially the more theoretical ones, like history. The sciences were fresh to me ”, he recalls. Guillem admits that “my goal was” to obtain a grade like the one he ended up getting, on 9. “Later I was lucky enough to achieve it, I’m very happy,” he adds, prudent and super affable.
He has studied at home and at his institute, at the Martí Franquès, where the teachers offered the students the chance to review and prepare for sele exams. “I haven’t spent all day studying,” she clarifies. He has completed the technological baccalaureate and is clear about his future. A double degree with two engineering, computer science and telecommunications in the specialty of electronics. His next destination, the UAB.
There are only 20 places in his double degree, he explains, and the note was, in addition to a personal challenge, the key to being able to study what he wants. “I hope to be able to enter, I wanted to secure my place with a good grade, which was also a personal ambition”, she comments.
He will take advantage of the summer to rest and recharge his batteries, already thinking about the next course at the uni. “I have many hobbies.” The most, play the piano. “I love it”. When he doesn’t play and hangs out with friends, his thing is board games.
Coincidentally, he also answers questions from Menorca, in Son Bou, where he has begun to enjoy his holidays. He is not with Elsa, they don’t know each other, she explains. “I also want to do the Camino de Santiago”.
Student of the Claver de los Jesuitas de Lleida school, he has obtained the best selectivity mark in the province, a 9.80. He wants to study medicine at the Clínic, at the UB, and says that he doesn’t know if he’s going to “enter” because the specific subjects didn’t go “so well”.
“I am very excited, they have called me from the Generalitat, they have congratulated me, I do not know who the person who called was, they told me that I had the best grade in Lleida”, Maria recounted by phone minutes after learning about her good results.
She didn’t always want to be a doctor. Because of her excellent grades and her passion for science, she did her science baccalaureate, and her teachers suggested medicine to her. “My mother is a doctor, I didn’t want to study medicine, but in the end I saw that it was really what I liked,” she admits now. “As a child -she adds- I liked space and the stars and it was hard to study physics”. She also likes music. She This year she finished her professional degree at the Conservatory, she studied Spanish guitar.
This summer her plans include being a monitor for the boys and girls at her school and then walking the Camino de Santiago with her Esplai Sant Ignasi, which bears the name of the parish.
Two students from the Ramon Muntaner de Figueres public high school, the oldest in Spain, have obtained the second best mark in the selectivity in Girona. They are Blai Higueras and Júlia Fita, who in addition to being friends, go to the same class.
“Leaving everything for the end almost never works, it’s tempting fate.” Still surprised by the note, Blai Higueras explains what the secret is. “The key is to follow the agenda well during the course, not to lose consistency and weeks before the selectivity, focus and do what you have to do,” he says.
And what he touches has basically been to study but “without becoming obsessed”. He has focused on scientific subjects, which he believed were the ones he should insist on the most. “I didn’t make a schedule, but I studied every day,” he says. He also left time for other hobbies such as reading, listening to music, walking the dog and meeting friends, although he admits that less than usual.
Another of the hobbies that he has practiced since he was little, chess, had to take a backseat in the middle of the course. He participated in competitions with the Escacs Olot Club in Catalonia and Spain, but decided to leave it to “have more time off.” “It was non-stop and he had to breathe a little,” he admits. However, he is convinced that learning chess has served him a lot and will continue to be useful in his educational stage. “He gains a lot in concentration and resistance,” explains Blai, who in two weeks will go to the University of Massachusetts, with a scholarship from the Youth and Science program of the Fundació La Pedrera, to carry out an engineering project. When he comes back, he wants to study electronic telecommunications engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
“My mother, who is a teacher, has always instilled in me that you should not leave everything until the end”
Júlia Fita’s job since she started high school has always been that of a little ant. Do not leave everything for the end and go doing a little each day. At home, she has lived this way of doing things since she was very little. “They have always instilled it in me; My mother, who is a primary school teacher, always told me that you have to do your homework every day and not leave it until the end”, she explains.
And this is how he has faced his stage in the institute, which has culminated with the second best mark of the selectivity. “I was happy when I left the exams, but you always have the question of whether you have not made a mistake in something,” she explains. She was only slightly wrong in Catalan and English, subjects in which she got a 9 and a 9.5 respectively. In the rest she obtained a 10. With an average of 13’052 out of 14, she wants to study medicine at the UAB or the UdG. “I’m still not sure where,” she says. Wherever she went, she will soon change her place of residence.
96.98% of Catalan students -a total of 32,538- who took the university entrance exams (PAU) from June 7 to 9 have passed them, with an average mark of 6.787 out of 10.
As reported by the Department of Research and Universities of the Generalitat, the percentage of passes is similar to that of 2022, which was 96.91%. The average mark of the general phase (6,787) has dropped this course compared to the 6,855 that was registered in 2022.
On the other hand, the next academic year 2023-2024 the free first year of studies will be extended to students of higher grade training cycles with honors. In this way, this benefit is equated to students coming from high school with an outstanding grade.
The surcharge for the second race or successive formations is also suppressed. The decree on public prices maintains the price reductions of recent years.
Other groups that join in obtaining benefits are those students who are victims of gender-based violence outside of their partner.
