Pune teen is all-India JEE-Advanced topper

With a score of 352 out of 396, Pune resident Chirag Falor, 18, from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) zone, emerged the all-India topper in the

With a score of 352 out of 396, Pune resident Chirag Falor, 18, from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) zone, emerged the all-India topper in the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced (JEE-Adv) exams, results for which were announced on Monday.

Chirag Falor scored score of 352 out of 396 in the Jee-Adv.

However, unlike many other candidates vying for seats in popular courses in top IITs, Falor plans to skip the race. “I have already secured admission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States and plan to pursue my undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Science) from the institute,” said Falor, adding that his application was accepted by MIT in March. “I consider JEE a test of skills. As I had already spent four years preparing for the exam, I chose to appear for the papers, despite already confirming admission with MIT,” he added.

Elaborating on the efforts that went into it, he said, “I started my preparation in Class 9 and completed my syllabus for Class 11 and 12 before I could pass out of Class 11. Throughout Class 12, I gave daily mock tests for JEE-Advanced.”

His parents hail from Rajasthan and he came to Pune when he was in Class 2. He completed his Class 10 from Saint Arnold’s School in Kalyaninagar in Pune. For Class 11 and 12, he enrolled himself at Pragati School, New Delhi. His father works as a software development manager, while his mother is a homemaker, who takes tuitions.

On getting into MIT, the Pune boy said it was “super tough than IIT”. “Less than five students from India make it to MIT. I aspire to become either an astrophysicist or an astronaut and plan to take up physics as a subject from second year at MIT,” he said.

For the last one month, Falor has spent almost 11 hours, from 5.30pm to 4.30am, six days a week, attending his regular classes online for MIT, and then spent a few hours preparing for the JEE. “My son’s body clock is working differently, but he didn’t let anything affect his JEE preparation,” said Pawan Kumar Falor, his father. “Chirag has been passionate about planets and skygazing since childhood. We supported his interests and his dreams. He was always interested in research. He does things from heart and concentrates on the tasks. We are proud of him.”

Seventeen-year-old Swayam Chube from Mumbai bagged the eighth all-India rank, becoming the Mumbai topper. Last month, Chube was among 24 students across the country to score a 100 percentile in the JEE Mains exam held in the first week of September.

“I’ve been working very hard to prepare for both JEE Mains and Advanced for the past two years. During the lockdown, I took a break from the preparation and again in the last one month, I spent a lot of time studying and solving papers,” said Chube, who wants to get a seat in the computer science department at IIT-B.

Toppers from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and SC (persons with disability) categories – Avi Uday and Yash Patil – too are from the IIT-B zone.

While Chirag is the male topper for JEE-Adv 2020, female topper Kanishka Mittal with the same rank (17) belongs to the IIT-Roorkee zone. The zone-wise female topper from the IIT-B zone is Niyati Mehta from Ahmedabad, with a common rank of 62.

As per information shared by the organising institute IIT-Delhi on Monday, 24 of the top 100 toppers of JEE-Adv 2020 belong to the IIT-B zone, including four of the top 10 scorers. Twenty-two toppers belong to the IIT-Delhi zone.

The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) has announced that eligible students can start the form filling process for admissions to IITs, NITs, IITs and other GFTIs on josaa.nic.in on October 6, starting 10am.

The total intake capacity across 23 IITs this year has gone up by almost 2,500 seats. From 13,583 last year, the intake capacity stands at 16,053 this year.

This year JoSAA will conduct six rounds of seat allotment as opposed to seven rounds last year. The first seat allotment list will be released on October 17.