Updated on 14 July 2026. This article was published on the preliminary results of 25 June, which showed four Ungheni graduates with a mark of 10 and 85 nationwide. After appeals, the final figures released by the Ministry of Education on 3 July are six in Ungheni and 114 nationwide. We have rewritten the headline and the text to the final figures. The cover, a collage made when the preliminary results were announced, shows only four of the six.
Six graduates from the town of Ungheni finished the 2026 Baccalaureate with a top mark of 10 — “straight tens,” as they call those who earn full marks in every paper. According to the nominal list published by the Ministry of Education and Research, they are Ionela Lefter, Alexandrina Rîsîpanu, Anastasia Rusu and Nichita Țurea, of the “Vasile Alecsandri” High School, Doina Prepeliță, of the “Ion Creangă” High School, and Andreea Mușet, of the “Alexandr Pușkin” High School.
The preliminary results of 25 June listed only four. The appeals added two more — both from “Vasile Alecsandri”.
The true scale of their achievement only becomes clear set against the national figure. Across the whole country, only 85 candidates earned a final mark of 10 in the main session — an all-time record, after 73 last year and 47 in 2024, according to the Ministry of Education and Research. And of those 85 results, 66 are in Chișinău. The remaining 19 are spread across the rest of the country. With its four, Ungheni is the largest group outside the capital — ahead of Strășeni (3) and the towns with one or two each.
What “straight tens” actually means
At the Baccalaureate, a candidate usually sits four exams: the language of instruction, a foreign language, the track subject (mathematics on the science track, history on the humanities track) and an elective. “Straight tens” means the top mark in each of them — not a high average, but the absence of any mark below 10.
For one of the four, the stakes were a notch higher. “Alexandr Pușkin” High School teaches in Russian, and students in minority-language classes sit an additional exam: Romanian language and literature. A final mark of 10 there therefore also implies a top mark in Romanian — a language the student studies as a second one.
Three high schools, not just one
The detail worth remembering locally is that the achievement does not come from a single “nursery.” The four results are split across three high schools: two at “Vasile Alecsandri” — the district’s oldest high school and the only one outside Chișinău to reach, in 2025, the top ten of the national ANACEC ranking — and one each at “Ion Creangă” and “Alexandr Pușkin.” The distribution in the Ministry’s official file (2 + 1 + 1) matches exactly the names announced by the City Hall.
It is not a one-year fluke. In 2025, Ungheni district had six graduates with a final mark of 10, from four high schools. The peak of academic excellence in Ungheni’s schools is thus confirmed for the third year running.
Preliminary, not final, results
Only one thing calls for caution: the 25 June figures are preliminary. Appeals are filed on 25 and 26 June, and the final results of the main session are posted on 3 July. Both the national figure of 85 and Ungheni’s four results may be confirmed or adjusted after the papers are re-marked. The names of the four come, for now, from the City Hall and the high schools — the Ministry currently confirms the number and the high schools, not the nominal list, which is usually published later.
A mark of excellence in a system short of teachers
The news of four final marks of 10 is good without reservation — which is exactly why it deserves to be read against its backdrop. The same high-school years that produce top results unfold in a district whose education system enters the new school year with dozens of unfilled teaching posts: Ungheni was among the districts with the largest teacher shortage in the country. And, more broadly, academic excellence happens in a town from which, year after year, young people leave after high school — for university, for work, across the Prut.
Three of the four graduates — Anastasia Rusu, Doina Prepeliță and Ionela Lefter — had, incidentally, been among those honoured on the stage of the Graduates’ Ball, just a week before the results. The question that remains, beyond the congratulations, is a matter of common sense: how many of these minds, celebrated today, will choose, a few years from now, to come back home.
Nationally, the Minister of Education framed the results within the same logic of a session better than the previous ones.
We have a higher pass rate than in previous years, more students with very good results and a record number of graduates who obtained an average of 10.
Dan Perciun, Minister of Education and Research
The overall pass rate was, this year, 75.4% — also rising for the third year in a row.
The number of graduates with a final mark of 10 and the distribution by high school come from the statement and official file of the Ministry of Education and Research (preliminary results, 2026 main session). The names of the four graduates were made public by Ungheni City Hall and their high schools; they do not yet appear in an official nominal list of the Ministry, which is usually published in July. The 2025 context data (six graduates with a final mark of 10 in Ungheni district) come from last year’s ANACEC nominal list. The 25 June results are preliminary; the final ones are posted on 3 July, after appeals.