NZQA technically does rank students but they do not release exact rankings.

Instead, they divide awards into different groups.

Premier (Top 5-10) - $30k
Outstanding (Top 40-60) - $15k
Scholarship Award (Top 200) - $2k

Qualifying results for each group changes every year but usually Premier is atleast 4 outstanding scholarships, outstanding is atleast 2 outstanding scholarships +1 scholarship or 1 outstanding scholarship +4 scholarships, and scholarship award is atleast 3 scholarships.

Hope that helps!

Just a little correction - the Scholarship Award mentioned above is $6k and an unlimited number can be given out - the only requirement is 3 scholarships (this doesn’t change from year to year, whereas Premier and Outstanding requirements do as they are based on top 10 and top 40-60).

Mmm, that’s what I thought initially, but then I read this webpage: http://community.crimsoneducation.org/nzqa-scholarship-auckland/

Where the two people featured have their scholarship rankings listed too. Incidentally on this webpage
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/news/2015-outstanding-scholar-award-winners/ the position of the sixth name seems to correlate with the scholarship ranking mentioned on Crimson’s website (6 names down + the 9 premier scholars of that year = 15th, as features on Crimson’s webpage). I suppose the connection isn’t just a coincidence?

The list of outstanding scholars from 2016 and 2014, on the other hand, seem to be listed alphabetically: http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/news/2014-nz-scholarship-results-now-available/2014-outstanding-scholar-award-winners/
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/news/2016-outstanding-scholar-award-winners/