I enrolled in JEE coaching after my summer vacation in grade 12. I won’t go into much detail about my JEE prep but, by the end of the year, I had decided I will go into IIT, just following the herd.

At the end of grade 11, my school held a career counseling workshop. I got to learn about what ISI, CMI and IISc are. I searched more about them on the internet. I search more about engineering. And about research. I decided that I am interested in maths and would love to go to such an institute.

But soon, for some reason, I realized that I would perhaps be better off with IIT. Half of grade 12 had already gone, and being neck deep in my JEE prep I was perhaps too scared to change my path. Around October, a teacher asked me what did I wanted to do. I was going to say IIT, but then it hit me hard.

I did more research about ISI, and IITs, and well, about research. This is when I landed upon the name of IISER. But still, I was looking at IISER to be a backup option. November came, and I made up my mind. I will NOT do engineering, and rather go for a PhD. Sure people from IITs and NITs do go for PhDs, but I wanted my career to be strictly science-related all throughout. I started preparation for ISI along with JEE.

Exams phase 1

January came. I gave my JEE Mains. It went better than I thought. 99.058%ile. I was hoping to perform better in April JEE and perhaps JEE Adv as well. I was targeting for IISc.

Then, covid happened. And now it has become tough. I got a chance to strengthen my weak areas, but so did every other aspirant. Soon came September. I was still not thinking about IISER. I gave my JEE mains. It went very well according to me. But not so good according to NTA. 95.00%ile. It was shocking. At this point, I had almost given up on IISc and was very sure that I would get into ISI. Then came the IAT.

Funny story, I had not wanted to register for IAT. I thought I would get admission through the JEE channel anyway. But I had registered for IAT accidentally. A few days before IAT, I was in a dilemma. Should I give IAT? I would get an under 5k rank in Adv for sure, and that would be enough for an IISER. But then just a day before IAT I thought eh let’s just give it anyways, ‘just in case’. So, I gave IAT and it went fabulous.

IAT EXAM

Attempted bio first. Did 1 question. Very happy.

Moved on to chemistry. Damn so easy. Did all questions, except for one.

Maths, easy yet again ! Did 13 questions, left two. One was from the topic relations which I had NEVER touched, and the other was actually nice.

Physics, kind of moderate to easy. Attempted all questions. Unfortunately got 4 wrong.

Result

109/180. Very happy. At this point of time, both IISER and ISI were the institutes I would LOVE to get into. In fact I was a bit scared, that if I manage to get into both, which would I choose ?

Then came ISI entrance. I was hyped. The objective went very good. The subjective, eh ok-ish. I thought I might just be a few marks above the cutoff. And my assumption was partly correct. I was a few marks below the cutoff. That was actually saddening.

Then came JEE-A. The exam that I had been working for since 2 years. People had hopes. My teachers had hopes. Most importantly, I had hopes.

But, it went terrible. So terrible I was actually scared if I would even manage to clear the cutoff.

Then came 20th October. I would have opened the portal every hour. The result came at around 5 or 6. The result came. It actually came. IISER Kolkata. My 1st choice. 1st round. Wow.