It was far from lonely at the top this year in the SSLC examination results released on Friday. Sixteen students, the same number as last year, shared the top honours in the Union Territory.
As a majority of the toppers had chosen French as a second language, only five of them qualified for a spot in the official Tamil Nadu State rank list, sharing the third rank.
On top of the rung with 499 marks were D. Adesh from Immaculate Heart of Mary Higher Secondary School, Ariyankuppam, A. Harshini from St. Joseph of Cluny Girls Higher Secondary School and Sithartha Sourya from Petit Seminaire Higher Secondary School. Adesh who scored centum in all subjects except English took no tuition classes. “I used to wake up at 5 a.m. to study every day,” said Adesh, whose sister Rajina was a source of support. His father, Devabalan runs a general store in Nallavadu village and has only studied up to class 5.
Adesh, a zonal-level medallist in athletics, wants to take up medicine. “This is the first time our school has got a State rank and it was a pleasant surprise,” says Sister Rosaria Therese, his school principal. Harshini who narrowly missed the perfect score says it was her relaxed attitude that helped her bag the first rank. With chemistry being her favourite subject, she plans to pursue chemical engineering. Sithartha Sourya aspires to get into one of the IITs or NITs. Students from Petit Seminaire and St. Patrick schools tied for the second place scoring 498. S. Venkataraman of St. Patrick had not dreamed of ranking first in his school let alone second in the State. “I was motivated by my teachers, particularly my Sanskrit teacher Srinivasan who believed I would bag a State rank.” Venkataraman aspires to become an engineer. His classmate V.S. Prrasanthi, who aspires to be an aeronautical engineer. “My older brother guided me to this achievement,” says Kabilesh from Petit Seminaire who is undecided on choosing between the biology and the computer science groups. His classmate, Shamseer has set his sights on becoming a doctor and taking up the IAS exams later.
Third rank
R. Sivashankari from Don Bosco Higher Secondary School, Nedungadu and I. Shalii from SRVS National School were the only students from Karaikal on the toppers list. Matching their score of 497 were three others from Puducherry - V. Vasanth from Amalorpavam School, C. Deepika from St. Patricks and Shameera Begum from Subramani Bharathi School, Thirukannur. B. Bhuvaneshwari of Amalorpavam, Yasmin from Cluny and D. Haarishkumar and Nithin Premiji, both from Petit Seminaire also ranked third.
