Atalaya Ferrari was ecstatic to discover last week she had scored 43 out of 45 in the International Baccalaureate (IB) — an alternative to the Higher School Certificate studied by 120,000 students around the world each year.

The result — equivalent to an ATAR of 99.6 — has paved the way for Atalaya to undertake a double major in zoology and conservation biology at the University of Western Australia in 2013.

But first the St Paul’s Grammar School student will visit relatives in Uruguay before hopefully taking to the high seas to protect the environment.

“I’ve always been really passionate about the environment and animals and that sort of stuff so I had it in my head for a long time that I wanted to go and, first, travel to broaden my horizons, but also straight after that I’m planning to volunteer with . . . Sea Sheperd Conservation Society,” said Atalaya.

Inspired by parents who have both been involved in community and political activism, Atalaya also hopes to fit in a trip to the Carribean to help the local population.

The impressive exam marks were the result of plenty of hard work that also delivered Atalaya joint Dux at St Paul’s.

She greeted the news with no shortage of surprise, having outstripped even her own lofty expectations.

Forced to wait a few weeks longer than HSC students to receive her marks, Atalaya said knowing she had put in her best effort made the delay easier to deal with.

“[The wait] hasn’t been nervous just because I was confident that I did my best. I didn’t have any doubt whether I could have done much better, but mainly because I’ve been occupying myself doing the things that I’ve always planned to do after school, like working . . . as soon as I finished my last exam. So I jumped straight into that and that took my mind off it,” she said.

Other Mountains students at St Paul’s included School Captain Claire Sadler from Springwood with an IB of 35 (ATAR equivalent: 92.75) and Rebekah Smith-Wade from Springwood (IB: 28, ATAR 79.75).