St. Timothy High grade 12 student Adaeze Ogboruche has tread where few others have before in Mathematics 30-1. She has scored a 100 per cent on her diploma exam.

Adaeze is no stranger to perfect marks in math. In grade 11, she got 100 per cent on her final exam and final grade. With a perfect mark on her diploma exam she has cemented another perfect mark for grade 12.

Adaeze was heavily influenced by her mother, an engineer, who was adamant she learn math at a young age. As time went on, she came to enjoy it and it came easier for her.

That, though, isn't the entire secret to her success, and, no, there wasn't any last-minute cramming involved.

"It's really about the work you put in," she explains. "I remember for a lot of my math courses, I learned the content ahead of time. So, whenever I would visit them the year I was supposed to learn it, it would all just be reviewed for me.

"I just got used to math. I spent a lot of time on the basics, just working through the steps of the process, familiarizing myself with the numbers. That's what developed my aptitude for math."

So, when others were preparing for the exam, she already had it under control.

"I made sure that I did all the homework. That's kind of what I like to do. I'm a bit of a completionist, so I always made the effort to complete everything that I could throughout the year and when I got to the diploma. I didn't really stress too much about it.

"I didn't really stress too much about it. I didn't expect to get 100%, but I was aiming for it and because I did preparation throughout the year, I didn't do much during diploma season other than help my other friends study and be a tutor for them."

St. Timothy principal David Gowan says Adaeze is an exceptional student who doesn't hesitate to help others. He says she says many students turn to her when they're struggling in physics or mathematics.

"They go to her because she's very patient and she's an incredible teacher."

In the Rocky View School Division, one student scored 100 per cent on their Math 30-1 diploma examination last year. He says it is also rare in the Calgary Catholic School District, where he has taught for over 25 years, including time at some of their larger high schools.

"Maybe once a year, sometimes two students a year, we'd see them a perfect mark on the math 30 diploma. So, for a high school that has 50 students in grade 12 to have someone reach 100 per cent, that just tells you how hard of a worker she is and just how intelligent she is."

Barry Tremblay has been her math teacher at St. Tim's for the last three years.

"He's really been able to challenge Adaeze and knows her learning style. Part of that comes from the consistency of having him and also by being in a smaller classroom. Our students do get more one-on-one time potentially than we'd see in a larger classroom."

Adaeze's accomplishments haven't gone unnoticed. She has scholarship offers from both Queen's University and University of Waterloo. While both of those scholarship offers are still pending, she has her eye on the much larger Schulich Leader Scholarship for engineering students, for which she has been nominated.

"I'm really hoping that I get the opportunity to receive that scholarship because it's worth $120,000 and it's either for going to Queen's or Waterloo."

She will be pursing studies in mechanical engineering, something she began considering in grade 11. 

"I started enjoying the more scientific principles because I could take that math and apply it to something, and it made a world of numbers seem directed and focused with an objective. I like when you can solve a puzzle that has a meaning, so since grade 11, my mind was fixated on engineering. It was just a matter of which stream."

Adaeze has attended St. Timothy's since grade 7.

This school year, Alberta Education returned to a 30 per cent weighting of diploma exams on the final mark. Last year, it was temporarily changed to 20 per cent.