When 20-year-old Salgy found out last week that she had topped some 200,000 students who took Afghanistan's university entrance exam this year, she was elated.

For months, she had locked herself away in her room in the capital Kabul to study, sometimes forgetting to eat. With her family crowding round their solar-powered TV as the results came in, she realized her hard work had paid off.

"That was a moment when I felt someone gifted me the whole world," said Salgy, who like many in the country goes by one name. "My mother cried out of happiness and I cried with her."