The Governor General’s Academic Medal is the highest award offered to a high school student, and is based on all Grade 11 and 12 courses.
The calculation is done only after all provincial exams have been marked, so schools will not know the final result until late August.
By this time, the recipient is often off to university, and the presentation of the award must wait until a break from studies.
This year, Haley Richardson placed first in Mark Isfeld Secondary based on her academic average of 96.75 per cent.
The Governor-General Award is always a close competition, and a gap of half a percentage point is considered a decisive margin.
The second-place student had an average that would have been good enough to win in most years, and Richardson surpassed that mark by a full 1.2 per cent.
This is not the first exclusive achievement Haley has attained this year. Months before her graduation, Richardson was recognized for winning the grand prize in the Arts and Entertainment Channel’s Essay Writing contest: $3,000 to put toward her education.
Richardson is studying sciences at Queens University, and will likely specialize in biology.