A 19-year-old Jaipur boy Mridul Agarwal scripted history by scoring the highest-ever percentile in the IIT entrance test i.e. 96%. He is also the first in the history of JEE to top both the JEE-Mains and JEE-Advanced.
In the JEE-Advanced, Agarwal received a score of 348 out of 360. This year, a total of 41,862 students qualified for JEE-Advanced.
Mridul has been a part of Kota Coaching for the past four years. He feels that his preparation is heavily influenced by the competitive atmosphere. He aspired to attain 100 percentile, which he did in JEE-Main. Mridul also says that the journey of Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been his inspiration.
His father Pradeep Agarwal works as an Accounts Manager at a private firm, and Pooja Agarwal is a homemaker. His mother and teachers provided him with inspiration throughout the year. For fun, he also likes watching movies.
Mridul has a stellar academic history. In Class 10, he scored 98.2 percent, and in Class 12, he got 98.66 percent. He received 428 points in BITSAT and an All India Rank 1 in JEE-Main.
Mridul holds an All India Rank 1 in KVPY and is an NTSE scholar. He was chosen for the OCSC IJSO Camp in Class 9 and the OCSC Physics Camp in Classes 11 and 12. Along with IOQP, IOQC, IOQA, and IOQM, he has been selected for the OCSC Camp for Astronomy in Class 12.
While talking to The New Indian Express, he said
Self-motivation, hard work, approach towards mistakes, and blessings of all are the factors behind my achievement. Like other successful individuals, I too had put in the effort, time, and energy. Achieving the goal gives me a feeling of satisfaction.
Agarwal’s next aim is to enroll in IIT Bombay’s B Tech department of computer science, with the intention of eventually entering one of the world’s top institutions, such as MIT.