Three of top 50 NEET scorers from Maharashtra

Out of 1.77 lakh students from Maharashtra, who appeared for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), 2018, over 50 per cent successfully cleared the exams including three students, who were featured in the list of top 50 students in the country. The NEET, 2018 results were declared on Monday.

Nanded's Krishna Agrawal bagged AIR 7 (99.99 percentile) with a score of 685 and emerged as the state topper. Agrawal, who hails from Shri Nagar in Nanded, wants to pursue Radiology. Coming from a family of doctors — his father, a pediatrician and mother, a dentist — aspiring for a career in medicine came to him naturally. "I studied for 6-7 hours everyday for the last two years and was thus confident of getting a single digit score."

However, this success, like any other, came a cost. Agrawal had to put in hard work by sacrificing his interests — badminton and swimming. "I went to a small coaching institute in Nanded but consistent efforts helped me."

Gunjan Gattani, from Akola, bagged AIR 21 with a score of 675 while Lokesh Mandlecha from Parli bagged AIR 37 with a score of 670. "I had expected a good score but the rank comes as a surprise. I want to study Endocrinology," said Mandlecha, whose father is a medical superintendent at a government hospital and mother, a general physician.

Maharashtra saw the highest number of registrations this year. Total 70,184 students cleared the exams. Early results came in as a surprise for most students as the CBSE was supposed to declare the results on June 5. Several students were disappointed as the CBSE did not accept the challenges raised by them and no bonus marks were awarded.