Jaipur boy tops JEE Advanced with record 96.6% score

NEW DELHI: Eighteen-year-old Mridul Agarwal scored 96.6% in the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced), setting a new record for the test that admissions seekers must clear to enter the country’s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).

Agarwal, who is a resident of Jaipur scored 348 out of 360 to ace the test, far surpassing the 88.8% scored by last year’s topper.

Delhi boy ranked second

Delhi residents Dhananjay Raman and Anant Lunia were ranked second and third, respectively, in the results announced on Friday.

A total of 141,699 candidates appeared for the exam, and 41,862 cleared it, including at least 6,000 female students.

Speaking to HT, Agarwal said the Covid-19 pandemic gave him a further push to focus on his preparation. “The lockdown gave us extra time to study and go through more study material and solve more test papers. The online tools became fun,” he said.

Agarwal, who won several Olympiads over the years, credited his family for supporting him through out his preparation.

Agarwal studied at Jaipur’s St Xavier’s School.

Agarwal’s mother, Pooja Agarwal, said the All India Rank-1 holder was always hardworking. “He has always been clear-headed about all his goals.”

Agarwal plans to pursue B.tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay.

Only the candidates who meet the cut-off set by the National Testing Agency (NTA) after qualifying the Jee(mains) can appear for Jee(advanced). This year’s cut off was set at 87.89% for the unreserved category.

The minimum qualifying marks for the entrance remained 17.5%, the same as last year. The qualifying marks dropped to 17.5% last year from 35% in 2019.

Officials attributed the decrease to the changes in the exam pattern.

“This is because students have been given marks out of 360 this year while last year they were marked out of 396. It was decided to make some changes in the exam pattern keeping in mind the Covid-19 situation,” said Debashish Chakraborty, chairman of Jee(advanced),

In Friday’s results, another candidate from the Delhi zone — Kavya Chopra — emerged the top-ranked female candidate with the Common Rank List of 98, scoring 286 marks out of 360.

A student of the Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, Kavya Chopra said, “I have been inclined towards mathematics from a young age. So I decided that engineering is a good discipline where I can channel those skills and have financial stability as well.”

She plans to pursue Computer Science from Iitdelhi.