Of the 11.7 lakh students who appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) for engineering admissions, 23 candidates — all boys — bagged hundred percentile score.
Among the toppers, seven are from Telangana, followed by three each from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, two from Haryana and one each from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka.
One of them, Telangana-based Rishi Shekhar Shukla, a 16-year-old student of the Pallavi Model School in Hyderabad, told the The Hindu, “I packed in nine hours of study per day, devoting three hours each to physics, chemistry and mathematics.”
Rishi Shekhar said he woke up at 5.30 a.m. to squeeze in two hours of self-study before attending school. He attended coaching classes for around three hours in the evening. Rishi Shekhar will be preparing for his Class 12 board exams till March 12, before turning his attention to the JEE (Advanced).
The JEE (Advanced) — for admission to IITs — is slated for May 26.
“I want to secure a good all-India rank in JEE (Advanced) and study computer science course in IIT Bombay,” he said.
Up to 12.21 lakh students had registered for JEE (Main) paper of which 11.7 lakh students (up to 95%) took the exam conducted at 544 centres across 291 cities (including 21 cities outside India, including Washington DC, Bangkok, Moscow, Singapore and Doha)
The examination was conducted in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Oslo for the first time, a spokesperson of National Testing Agency (NTA) said.
Up to 3.8 lakh girl students and 7.8 lakh boys appeared for the exam, which were held across five days from January 27 to February 1, in 13 languages.
Of the 11.7 lakh engineering aspirants who appeared for the exam, 3.92 lakh students belonged to the General Category, 1.5 lakh to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS), 4.74 lakh to the Other Backward Classes, 1.13 lakh to the Scheduled Castes and 38,220 to the Scheduled Tribe categories.
The NTA has said that the second session of the JEE (Main) will be held between April 4 and April 15 for which students can submit forms online till March 2. The top 2.24 lakh rank holders in the JEE (Main) qualify to appear for the JEE (Advanced)
“Candidates who have appeared for first session can reappear for the second session if they wish to improve their score. Those candidates who have not applied earlier can apply afresh,” Sadhana Parashar, Senior Director (Exams), said.
