Scoring 352 out of 395 marks, the 18-year-old Chirag Falor from Pune made news by securing the top rank in Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) – Advanced 2020. Another recent achievement of Chirag includes securing 100 percentile marks and an All India Rank of 12 in JEE Main 2020. However, unlike most of the other candidates, Chirag has decided to skip IIT and remain focused on his goal of holding a PhD in Astrophysics. He is already enrolled in the Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree course in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is amongst the only five students from India who are getting a chance to study at the world’s top-most university this year.
Why did Chirag appear for JEE when he had already got admission in MIT?
Chirag considers JEE as one of the toughest examinations in the world, the preparations of which helped him a lot while appearing for the entrance examination at MIT. It also helped him secure credits in his score. He considers JEE as a “test of skills” and therefore used it as a means to a bigger and better end.
Explaining his decision to appear for the JEE examination further, he said that he “studied for JEE for 4 years” and therefore “didn’t want to waste all this hard work by not giving the exam.” Besides, he considers his topper position in JEE Advanced as an achievement “for life” and didn’t want to miss the precious opportunity to “appear from one last exam in India” before he moves to the United States.
IIT Bombay offers admission to the top 50 JEE Advanced rank holders in its Computer Science course. However, this Pune boy has given up his IIT seat for his place at MIT. Having already begun his online MIT classes from September 1, 2020, Chirag misses the actual campus life. Due to the pandemic, he and his classmates have been unable to attend regular classes in MIT, US.
While Chirag has been preparing for the JEE exam ever since he was in Class 8, he “always loved the stars, planets, etc” and therefore aimed to become a Researcher in Astrophysics rather than an Engineer. Hence, while he has taken admission in the BSc course in MIT, he later wishes to take up physics as a subject for specialisation.
Previous Proud Achievements of Chirag Falor
Chirag Falor, a devotee of science and astronomy, started displaying great interest in the celestial bodies from a very young age. He used his telescope, a gift from his parents, to observe the night sky.
Let’s look at some of the many achievements of Chirag below:
- He secured 98.4% marks in his Class 12th CBSE board examination
- He won the American Mathematics Competition (AMC-10) 2019
- He stood first in the Homi Bhabha Balvaidnyanik Competition
- He scored 99.9897 percentile score in the JEE held in January. He sat for the JEE Main exam again in September and obtained 100 percentile with AIR 12
- He went on to top JEE Advanced 2020
- He is one of the five Indian students in the year 2020 to get admission in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- He also represented India at the 13th International Olympiads Award on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) 2019, Keszthely, Hungary for which he received the Bal Shakti Award by PM Narendra Modi
Chirag Falor’s JEE Preparation Strategy
Chirag Falor completed his schooling from Pragati Public School in Dwarka. Apparently, he had purposely moved away from his home town Pune to focus on his senior secondary studies and JEE preparation. Let’s look at the preparation strategy of Chirag Valor which helped him achieve the first position in the common rank list of JEE Advanced.
- Chirag began his preparation for JEE in Class 8 and had completed his syllabus by Class 11 itself. Ever since, he never stopped practicing sample papers. Hence, effectively, Chirag prepared for JEE for four years and DID NOT resort to any last-minute preparation strategies.
- During the 4 years of JEE preparation, Chirag studied for 6-12 hours a day
- As per Chirag, the list of tricky questions and content given to him by Akash institute helped him a lot in preparing for JEE Advanced. He studied in Akash Institute in Class 9th and 10th before moving to Delhi for his higher secondary education.
- All through Class 11 and 12, Chirag stayed away from social media. He activated his social media handles recently after appearing for JEE Advanced. He also didn’t watch much entertainment channels on television since he was staying in a hostel in Delhi.
- Chirag maintained a fixed schedule and played table tennis and chess during leisure time.
- One month before JEE Advanced, Chirag spent close to 11 hours from 5:30 pm to 4:30 am, studying six days a week. During this time, he was attending online classes for MIT and then solving JEE papers.
- Finally, Chirag participated in a lot of tests, camps and Olympiads, which helped him take a break from his regular JEE studies. Even during his break time, he did something productive to sharpen his brain.
JEE Advanced topper’s advice to students
Chirag Valor, JEE Advanced 2020 topper advises the students to “not get bored and lose hope in the middle.” As per him, JEE preparation is long and tedious and takes time. He recommends the future aspirants to put their hearts and souls to their pursuit until they achieve success.
JEE Advanced Results 2020 – A Brief
IIT Delhi declared the JEE Advanced result 2020 on October 5, 2020. The qualifying aggregate marks for the JEE (Advanced) common rank list reduced to a five-year low at 69.
- Out of 1.6 lakh students (total number of registered applicants), 1.5 lakh appeared and 43,204 cleared the examination.
- Out of the 43,204 candidates who cleared JEE-Advanced, 6,707 were girls. Chirag Falor bagged the first rank with 352 out of 396 marks, while Vijaywada’s Gangula Bhuvan Reddy and Bihar’s Vaibhav Raj got the second and third rank respectively.
- Kanishka Mittl is the topper amongst the girls and got the 17th rank in JEE Advanced. She scored 315 out of 396 marks.
- 24 of the top 100 toppers of JEE-Adv 2020 belong to the IIT Bombay zone, including four of the top ten top scorers. The is followed by 22 top scorers out of 100 belonging to the IIT Delhi zone.
- Avi Uday and Yash Patil are toppers from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and PwD (persons with disability) categories. Both of them belong to the IIT Bombay zone.
- At present, every sixth student at undergraduate level in IIT is a female. This is the best gender ratio in IIT in the last 5 years.
- More OBC students (52,785 appeared and 9349 qualified) than general category students (39,605 appeared and 18,028 students qualified) appeared for JEE Advanced in 2020.
