Telangana leads the way in JEE Mains, toppers ready for Advanced

Hyderabad: Singaraju Venkat Koundinya from Hyderabad scored the highest 100 percentile in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains 2023 Session 2, the results of which were released on Saturday. He was among the 43 students who scored 100 percentile, along with Kallakuri Sainadh Srimanth from Andhra Pradesh.

Telangana students shone brightly in the JEE Mains, bagging four of the top 10 all-India ranks in the open category. Allam Sujay came sixth, Vavilala Chidvilas Reddy seventh, Bikkina Abhinav Chowdary eighth and Abhineet Majety came in 10th.

Despite having scored a perfect 300, beating 8,83,371 candidates, Venkat kept his celebrations short, exchanging brief smiles with his family before heading to his coaching centre.

“This is not what gets me into the IIT. So, I'm off to prepare for the JEE Advanced,” Venkat student said. He is passionate about programming and aspires to get into the computer science course at IIT and specialise in artificial intelligence.

Venkat’s father Sriphani Singaraju said: “When Venkat was young, he aced several Olympiads and has been interested in academics. After chalking out a plan for his future four years ago, I quit my IT job and decided to be an entrepreneur to support him morally and psychologically as it's no easy task.”

Venkat’s mother Rajarajeswari said she couldn’t wait to celebrate properly when Venkat aces the JEE Advanced.

Vanamala Aman Preetham of Hyderabad, who scored 99.99 percentile, said there was no surprise and the celebrations, if any, will take place after June 4. “There might be a celebration on Sunday after his mock test,” said Dr Uma Maheshwar, his father, who is also a mechanical engineering professor at Osmania University.

Preetham, unlike most toppers, is an all-rounder. From music to chess and karate, he has excelled in all. “He graduated 8th grade in guitar lessons from the Trinity School of Music, London, and represented the state at chess and karate championships, and is a ‘dan’ belt holder,” Dr Maheshwar said.

Preetham hopes to accomplish multiple things. “It began with me wanting to be a civil servant, then wanting to pursue BCom and BSc too. My mom wanted me to pursue MBBS. Just before I finalised my subjects, my father sat me down and spoke to me. By way of elimination and interests, I took up these subjects,” Preetham told DC.

The cut-off percentage for the general category was 90.7788642; EWS 75.6229025; OBC 73.6114227; SC 51.9776027; ST 37.2348772 and UR-PH 0.0013527.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) announced the results of Paper 1 (BE/BTech) on Saturday, while the results of Paper 2 (BArch/BPlanning) are awaited.

“The NTA scores of 15 candidates have been withheld as they are under scrutiny,” a senior official said. The NTA score is not the same as percentage of marks obtained but normalised scores.