Top scholar Cameron Baxter, 17, has just found out he gained five individual scholarships in his final year at Massey High School in 2017.

One of the country’s top scholars still finds the time to dabble in his passion for metal music.

That’s after he’s challenged his brain to some unusual arithmetic on YouTube and a minimum of three and a half hours of study every night.

Massey High School student Cameron Baxter gained four scholarship subjects in calculus, physics, statistics and chemistry and one outstanding scholarship in history.

This puts the 17-year-old on par with the top 40 to 60 students in the country.

Scholarship exams are among the most challenging offered to New Zealand secondary students, requiring critical thinking applied to complex situations.

Students sit these on top of their NCEA exams and if achieved, receive monetary awards.

Cameron, who was the academic leader in his final year at Massey High School, was “stoked” to find out he had exceeded his goal of achieving beyond three scholarship results in his subjects.

He attempted calculus, physics and English at scholarship level last year in Year 12 and gained calculus.

“The key to achieving for me was using past papers and finding my passion in every subject,” he says.

“I would watch YouTube clips of crazy concepts tackling problems, some of them I couldn’t even understand but it made me more prepared for the scholarship exams.”

Cameron says his success is not only due to his commitment to his studies, but also to the hard work and dedication of the teachers at Massey High School.

“Massey High School is an awesome school for Year 9 to 13. There are so many opportunities and people with different passions wanting to inspire and change the world,” he says.

“As academic leader I was able to help the successful students, as well as bringing up the ones struggling.”

In between his studies, Cameron also found time for his other interest - music. The band he plays guitar in, Oath to Azrael, came first in the Smokefree Rockquest Auckland Regional final last year.

He’s already lined up gigs for this year in between his studies at the University of Auckland where he will be studying a bachelor of engineering, focusing on electronics or mechatronics, conjoint with science, with a double major in physics and maths.

Cameron has already had a head start in his university papers as he did a maths paper through acceleration class for secondary students intending to go to the University of Auckland.

Earlier in the year, Cameron was awarded an NCEA scholarship tutoring grant from Crimson Education, which helps students achieve their potential. This gave him extra tuition from past top scholars.

Results for the 2017 New Zealand scholarships have been released. Students can check their results on New Zealand Qualifications Authority’s website.

New Zealand Scholarship financially rewards students with top grades who are going on to full time tertiary study in New Zealand.

More than 9,800 students entered New Zealand scholarship last year across 35 subjects. Of those who sat New Zealand Scholarship, 2413 students were awarded one or more scholarships.