The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Five Chennai students among top 100 rankers in IIT Joint Entrance Examination

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Five Chennai students among top 100 rankers in IIT Joint Entrance Examination

Priscilla Jebaraj

CHENNAI: Five students from Chennai made it to the top 100 ranks in the Joint Entrance Examination of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT-JEE), including one student in the top ten.

V. Prashant, a student of PS Senior Secondary School, Mylapore, bagged the fifth rank nationwide and the first rank in the State, according to the results announced on Monday. He was one of about 75 students from Chennai who were declared qualified to seek admission for 8,295 seats in the IITs this year, according to G. Srinivasan, regional chairman for JEE 2009. The IIT-Madras zone for the JEE, which catered to students from all the southern States, saw 2,426 students qualifying, second only to the Delhi zone. About 10 to 15 per cent of these students are from Tamil Nadu, said Dr. Srinivasan. Prashant, who was also a CBSE topper this year, was confident he had done well in the JEE and would make it to the top 30 ranks, but was pleasantly surprised about his fifth rank. He wants to become a researcher and will opt for either Electrical or Computer Science Engineering at IIT-Madras or IIT-Bombay. Although Prashant has been part of a FIITJEE weekend coaching programme since Class 9, he says he started taking IIT seriously only in Class 11, when he moved from the outskirts of the city to Mylapore. He also started daily JEE coaching classes at K.K. Anand’s SMART institute and says both the coaching and school classes combined to contribute to his success. “In North India, many students ignore school completely to concentrate on JEE preparation,” he said. “But I think even if they perform well in JEE, their overall development will be hindered and their soft skills will be poor.”

Prashant gives credit to his parents’ support and says they never pressured him to get into IIT. Despite his hectic school schedule, he has been a keen quizzer and hopes to pursue his hobby on the IITs’ famed quizzing teams. A.V. Gunaa, a student of Maharishi Vidya Mandir, bagged the 16th rank at the All-India level and hopes to pursue either Computer or Electrical Engineering at IIT-Madras. He has been aiming for an IIT seat since Class 8 and a year later, became part of the first four-year batch of FIITJEE Chennai. Qualifying candidates will now be called for counselling for admissions between June 9 and 16. Course allocations to the successful candidates will be declared on June 24.

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