A Buldhana teen has topped this year’s joint entrance exam (JEE), Mains, and that too without the help of any coaching centre. Ashish Gawai, 17, aced the competitive examination with a score of 346 marks.The CBSE board declared the JEE Mains results on April 28. According to media reports, the JEE Mains state topper was Sankalp Gaur, a student of DAV Public School in Pune, with a score of 345. Gawai, however, secured a higher score (120 in Maths, 111 in Physics and 115 in Chemistry), and the first rank in the Common Merit List (CML).A student of Shahu Junior college, Gawai spent 11 hours every day preparing for the exam. He said he drew inspiration from his father, who teaches Mathematics and English at a zilla parishad school in Buldhana and helped him in the preparation.Unlike most of his competitors, who started attending coaching classes from as early as Class VIII, Gawai did not attend any such class. “I would get my material from online sites and guide books. My main preparation involved solving question papers of the past years,” said Gawai. When asked about his interests, he said he reads inspirational books in his free time.As of now, Gawai aims to secure a seat in the Computer Science engineering course at IIT-Bombay. Later, he wants to appear for the UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION (UPSC) examination. “It is my dream to clear UPSC and be a part of the administration,” he said.Almost 13 lakh students appeared for the exam in the country. Of them, only 152,401 cleared the Mains and will now appear for JEE Advanced later this month. Students who have cleared the Mains will be eligible to take admission in undergraduate engineering programmes in IITs, NITs and other centrally funded technical institutes, while those who clear the Advanced exam will be eligible for IITs.