20 students from Telangana top JEE Main; Aim for startups, not ‘boring’ MNCs
Hyderabad: When M. Nihal Raj and K. Roshan from Telangana were informed that they were the toppers in the first session of the JEE (Main), the results of which were announced on Tuesday, they were elated and attributed their success to perseverance and a head start in preparing for the exam.
This year, 20 students topped the Session 1 exam and received a perfect 100 for the JEE Main, the National Testing Agency (NTA) said; all of them are boys. They include 14 from the general category, four from the OBC category and one each from EWS and SC categories.
While most candidates for admission to the IITs want to eventually land jobs in big MNCs, Nihal Raj, who scored 99.624 percentile, said he wanted to work for a start-up instead. Nihal, whose mother is a boutique designer and whose father is an architect, claimed that life would be “dreary and boring” in MNCs whereas start-ups would provide him with more opportunities to progress and grow. “Why should we hold ourselves back when we have so much potential,” he asked.
Nihal said he consistently prepared for the exams, followed his teachers' instructions, and made an effort to study for six hours every day in addition to regularly attending classes. "I wasn't expecting such a high score, only a percentile of around 99. I want to study computer science at IIT Bombay,” he stated.
K. Roshan from Hyderabad, who scored a percentile of 99.644, stated that he had aimed for a higher score and gave credit to his parents for the accomplishment. Yada Akshay from Warangal scored 99.603 percentile. “We had anticipated Akshay to get a percentile of 99.7 to 99.8, as he is a bright student, but still we are thrilled with the result,” said Akshay's mother Yada Sreelatha, a teacher.
Nationwide, while Md Sahil Akhtar is the PwD topper with 99.9848042 NTA score, the SC topper is Deshank Pratap Singh with 100 NTA score and ST topper is Dheeravath Thanuj with 99.99041.
The candidates who scored 100 NTA scores include Abhineet Majety, Amogh Jalan, Apurva Samota, Ashik Stenny, Bikkina Abhinav Chowdary, Deshank Pratap Singh, Dhruv Sanjay Jain, Dnyanesh Hemendra Shinde, Duggineni Venkata Yugesh, Gulshan Kumar, Guthikonda Abhiram, Kaushal Vijayvergiya, Krish Gupta, Mayank Son, N.K. Vishwaajith, Nipun Goel, Rishi Kalra, Soham Das, Suthar Harshul Sanjaybhai and Vavilala Chidvilas Reddy.
A staggering 95.8 per cent attendance was recorded in the January edition of the exam with over 8.23 lakh candidates appearing for it. The second edition of the exam will be conducted in April. After both sessions of JEE (Main) examination, the ranks of the candidates will be released taking into consideration the best of the two NTA scores in accordance with the policy.
Based on the results of JEE-Main Paper 1 and Paper 2, the top 2.6 lakh candidates will be eligible to appear for the JEE-Advanced exam, which is a one-stop exam to get admission into the 23 premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Last year, the qualifying percentile at JEE (Main) to be eligible for JEE (Advanced), the entrance test for admission to IITs, has registered a four-year-low for all the reserved categories and a three-year low for the unreserved category.
