Following in the footsteps of his brother, Gnanankith J.A., a student from Mysuru, set out with a goal to secure a seat in the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) this year. With his grit and hard work, he ended up securing the first rank in the country under the Scheduled Caste category in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities.
“I had not expected to get a rank as high as this. I truly have no words to express how I am feeling. I am very thankful to my mother who supported me in every step of the way and my brother (who studies at NLU Jodhpur) for his guidance. Although I had not started preparing for the exam in a serious manner until December, after that, my teachers at the coaching institute helped me greatly,” Gnanankith said.
He added that he has chosen to pursue law as it will help him contribute to society in an informed manner. “I will be more aware of rights and laws. Besides, if I decide to write UPSC exams, studying law would be very helpful.”
The CLAT results were announced on Friday evening and the toppers are elated that their months of hard work has finally borne fruit. All the top rank holders who spoke to The Hindu said they would be joining the NLSIU, Bengaluru, as it had always been their first choice. Interestingly, many of them had first considered an engineering career before switching their focus to law.
Several other students from the State secured top rankings this year, including Sanjana S. Rao who secured an All India Ranking (AIR) of 7, and Shivaraman Raghuraman who secured an AIR of 12.
Sanjana and Shivaraman both believe that consistency is key to clearing CLAT and they kept up with current affairs and general knowledge on a daily basis. “I used to study four to five hours a day. I never pulled any all-nighters. Unlike other entrance exams, here you do not have much to study, so you just have to keep practising and take mock tests,” Shivaraman said.
Aumita Mishra (AIR 14) and Prem Vinod Parwani (AIR 16), on the other hand, believed in a strict schedule and specific goals. “I used to spend 20 minutes practising math, one hour on leisure reading to improvise the speed of reading and read the newspaper every day for general knowledge,” said Aumita. Prem said he spent a lot of time on general knowledge reading and group studies along with his peers. Other than these students, Anirudh Raghav from the city has secured an AIR of 24.
