The seconds are ticking away now for more than 60,000 Leaving Cert students, nervously anticipating their results tomorrow.
Whether it was two years of hard slog or a frantic two weeks of intense cramming, tomorrow morning young people all over the Republic will open the same envelope holding those all-important marks which will decide their fate.
Across the Border, approximately 10,500 A-level students will get their results on Thursday.
Standing at a crossroads in their lives, the summer of '99 will be one to look back on as a time spent relishing the last of a carefree existence, before the world of adult life impinged.
So what are this year's school leavers up to now that "the best days of their lives" have come to an end?
Bronagh Milligan (17), from Churchtown, in Dublin, did her Leaving Cert at Our Ladies Grove
`I feel a sense of absolute relief, like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. I'm so glad to get out of school. I don't dread adulthood at all, it's about time I got there. I got a job working full-time in Superquinn so I could save up to go on a holiday. At the end of August I'm going away with 16 of the girls from my class to Greece for two weeks. It'll be my first time abroad with my friends. We've planned it for months, it's been something to keep us going for the last year of school. The party will start the minute we get our results! I'll have to get up for work the next day, but it's my life now - I'm free to get up with a hangover if I want to. I do feel terrified about getting my results, though. I'd like to do well - everyone wants to - but these results in particular will determine my whole life. You're at a crossroads all of a sudden, faced with decisions which will have an impact for ever.
"Once the summer is over, things will change completely. At school a big gang of us hung around together. But we'll all go on to do different things and move away from being so close. I'm hoping to do a PLC in Travel and Tourism. If I get in, I'll walk into a room full of new faces at the start of the year. It will be hard, but I'll just have to make new friends. It will be a lot different to school, we'll be treated much better. There won't be the same rules and regulations; we'll be allowed to smoke, for example. But it isn't as if you're suddenly parachuted into adult life, it's more like another step along the way. I already look back on school with a certain nostalgia, I have to admit, although the pressure coming up to the Leaving is unbearable. This is the life now. At my age you're supposed to be enjoying yourself - living life to the max, being irresponsible, and having the freedom to make mistakes."
Tony Stokes (18) from Warrenpoint, in Newry, did his A levels this year at St Colman's College
`Its great to be finished the exams, although
I do worry about having to start afresh at college. My first choice is business studies at Trinity College in Dublin. You need quite good marks and I think I did enough work, but you never know how it will go. I hate to have to wait, this is one of the most nerve-wracking parts. Whatever I get, I'll be out partying with my friends the day the results come out. I think that's when the finality of it all will set in. I wasn't particularly sad, orparticularly delighted, when I finished. I have to say I had a very good time at school. Our exams aren't quite as pressurised as the Leaving Cert because we are assessed continuously during the year and all the results are combined for your overall mark - it doesn't all depend on the one exam. I've been working full- time in a bank in Dublin since I finished. It's my first job, first time putting subjects into practice and first time living away from home. Maybe as much because of all that change, it does feel as if I'm at a turning point in my life.
I had one day off after the exams. It was a sunny day and I sat around in the garden for a few hours. But I found it very hard to relax - I kept feeling I should be upstairs studying. Towards the end there wasn't time to take a 10-minute break. Even though I'm working full-time, it does feel like I'm into my first taste of freedom now. I'm not feeling nervous about the results yet. I've plenty on my plate with work and I try not to worry about it. But I've never opened such an important envelope before, so it is something I think about a lot - that split second when your whole fate is decided. . ."
Sinead Byrne (18) from Seville Place, Dublin, did the Applied Leaving Cert at Marino College, Fairview this June
`I did seven exams this summer but because all the work you do during the year is taken into account for your final result, the pressure doesn't all pile up on you. I didn't feel nervous going into the exams. I'd worked hard over the two years and I did well in my assessments, so I felt very confident going in. I've seen the sort of pressure the Leaving Cert creates, and after the pressure of the Junior Cert I'd sooner have dropped out than go through anything like that again. You could work really hard for two years and then something goes wrong on the day, and it's all been a waste. When I saw how the applied leaving worked I decided to stay. I have to say, I've really loved school. When you enjoy school, you realise the teachers are there for you, not to get at you. I know I'll look back and see school as the best days of my life and feel it's given me great opportunities for the future. Some of the girls wanted to burn our uniforms, but I've put my books and everything up into the attic - I'm not really ready to part with it all yet!
"I feel like this is the last summer of my childhood. But you have to grow up eventually. I've applied to do a PLC in computers and business studies at Marino College next year. We'll be treated more like adults. We won't have to wear a uniform, obviously, and we'll have more independence. Although I'm going away to Spain with my friends for the first time in a few weeks, I think I see this summer more as the end of a certain kind of freedom, from now on there'll be a lot more responsibility."
Brian Drysdale (18) from Raheny, in Dublin, did his Leaving Cert in Belvedere College
`I've just been spending the summer working really hard so far. I've two jobs, one of them is full time but it doesn't pay very well, so I also work part-time as a bar tender. I'm saving for a holiday at the end of the summer; it's probably a bit of a stereotype, every student seems to do it with all their friends after the Leaving, but I've had this dream since last year and I can't wait. I'm going away with 10 friends to the Canary Islands for two weeks. When I get back I'm hoping to go to college and do computer applications. I was really sick this year and I lost quite a bit of time, so coming up to the Leaving I had to do about six to seven hours studying a day. I was just submerged in books, I feel like I missed out six months of my life. It feels really good to be done. For the last year of school you have this horrible nagging feeling like you've grown out of your clothes. Finally I can do what I want to do. But I'm not in a hurry to get into the trap of adult life - job, mortgage, car and all that. I hope college will give me a certain kind of freedom I've never had.
"I'll go up to the school to get my results on Wednesday. I'm nervous, but not too worried. I'll either get what I want or I won't, and I'll plan my life accordingly. If I don't get into the course I'd like to do, it will still be possible to do the sort of work I want. It may take longer but there are always other routes if you really want to do something, and there's nothing like a bit of life experience as you get there. I doubt I'll ever go back to visitmy old school, although I might look back nostalgically on it all in about 10 years' time. I don't feel as if I'm at a crossroads in my life, I feel more like I'm walking in a straight line, like I know what's going to happen, - but knowing life, it probably won't all go as I expect it to."
Joe McEniry, (17) sat the Leaving Cert at Mountmellick Community School in Co Laois
`There wasn't that much pressure coming up to the exams, but during them, and after, it was really high. Everyone expected quite a lot of me, so when I felt I didn't do well no one took me very seriously. They just said `ah, sure,you'll get an `A' anyway'. There were two exams I didn't do so well in and just one or two bad exams can ruin the whole thing. That's made it quite hard this summer. I try not to think about it but when I'm alone I can't help it and I end up feeling pretty depressed. The day I finished I went home, changed out of my uniform for the last time and went out with my friends. I started working in a hardware shop a week later, and I've been at that ever since. I'm not planning to go away on any sort of a holiday - I haven't managed to save anything yet!
"I've applied for science at UCD. At the moment, though, I'm in a sort of limbo. I don't actually know what I'm going to be doing with my life, I'm just here waiting for the results to see. Come the 18th, hopefully I'll have a life back, or maybe lose one, we'll just have to wait and see! If I do get into UCD I'll come back home every weekend. Any of my friends planning on going away to college say they'll be back for the weekend, so no matter where we all end up, I don't think we're going to lose touch with one another. Since I finished school things have changed at home. My parents treat me more like an adult - my dad brings me up to the pub with him now! To be honest, I think my parents are the ones who see this as the start of a new freedom. My older sisters are already away at college and we hope I'll get there this autumn, so they are joking about sending my youngest sister to boarding school and finally having a free house for themselves."
