NEET: Tardeo boy tops state, 3 from city in top-50 list across India

In times when preparation for competitive exams is considered directly proportional to the coaching giant one takes admission to, Balse decided to take a road less traveled as he did not want to feel boxed in while preparing for NEET. A student of Campion School till class X, Rishi joined KC College while preparing for NEET. He finished top of the pile in the state after the results were declared on Wednesday, scoring 710/720. “I never wanted to join any big-name tuition classes which don’t allow you to have time for yourself, not just for preparation but also to unwind. I prefer balance in life. We have seen examples of burnouts due to overwork,” said Rishi, who joined Science Simplified Private Tuition to prepare for NEET.

He said he used to prepare daily goals to take one day at a time. “If you set a larger goal for yourself, you are bound to feel overwhelmed. After all, preparing for NEET is definitely a mental health challenge,” said Rishi, a passionate musician. He has learnt to play the piano and will soon start taking guitar lessons. Apart from pursuing medicine at the KEM Hospital medical college, Rishi’s dream is to release his own music album someday.

With a score of 705/720, Vaidehi hopes to bag a seat at a reputed government medical college for MBBS, embarking on a journey to become a surgeon. “Surgery and the human body are the topics of my interest. Whenever we had free time in class, I would ask the teacher if we all could watch surgery videos as they give us so much information,” said Vaidehi. Her father is an engineer with the central government while her mother is a homemaker. She also has an elder sister, who is a corporate lawyer.

Vaidehi said she was ready to tread a totally different path after discovering her passion and did not shy away from the hard work required to achieve her goal. “While there is no option but to work hard, one should not constantly keep studying. It is important to have some free time as well. I read books and wrote journals which kept me refreshed and motivated,” said Vaidehi, adding that she liked studying online as she could conserve energy on travel. However, she said a regular-set-up would have helped. “When you are studying online, you are preparing in isolation and seldom have the opportunity to see where you are on the scale,” said Vaidehi, who loves listening to music and is learning to play the guitar.

Thane boy Saahir Bajaj, who also made it to the top-50 at AIR 20, said the pandemic-induced online learning helped him focus on studies as less time was spent on commuting. He said while his batch had a pandemic challenge; the next might have to contend with some other challenge when appearing for NEET or other competitive exams. “What’s important is to keep yourself motivated,” said Saahir, adding that he was aware of the pressure of a competitive exam. He said his twin brother Kabir is waiting anxiously for his Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) – Advanced results.

The National Testing Agency conducted the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (UG) for 18,72,343 candidates at 3,570 centres across 497 cities, including 14 outside India, on July 17. The number of candidates this year was the highest in the last four years. However, 17,64,571 actually showed up for the test and 9,93069 have qualified.