Aniswar Srivatsa Krishnan (L) and R Raghu Raman(R)

CHENNAI: While students from the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana dominated the Joint Entrance Test (Main) 2018 topper's list, those from Tamil Nadu were notably absent from the top 20.

Aniswar Srinivatsa Krishnan , a CBSE student from Chennai secured the 21st rank, scoring 335 of 360 in the national-level test for admission to NITs, IIITs, centrally-funded technical institutes and other leading private educational institutions. Those seeking admission in IITs must clear the next level of tests, JEE (Advanced).

Another city CBSE student R Raghu Raman from Adyar secured the 27th rank at the national level and stood second in Tamil Nadu.

"Overall, performance of candidates from Tamil Nadu, particularly mediocre students, in this year's JEE Main was not good as many found the mathematics and chemistry papers tough," said B Pavan Kumar, director of FIITJEE, a prominent private training centre with centres across the state.

The minimum cutoff required for candidates to appear for JEE Advanced has also dropped significantly for the second time in a row. Candidates belonging to the general category become eligible for the next round only if they scored 100 or above in JEE Main in 2016. This came down to 81 in 2017 and 74 this year.

Similarly cutoffs for Other Backward Caste (Non-Creamy Layer), Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students has come down from 49,32 and 27 respectively in 2017 to 45, 29 and 24 respectively this year.

Speaking to TOI, Krishnan, who underwent training at FIITJEE for two years, attributed his high scores to the continuous mock tests he undertook.

Even the state topper found the chemistry paper difficult. "I secured 120 in the other two papers, but lost marks only in Chemistry, as the questions were extremely tricky," said Krishnan, a student of Devi Academy in Virugambakkam.

Hoping to enter IIT Madras or IISC Bangalore , he said that results caught him by surprise as he was expecting a rank of 100 or above.

The other topper, Raman from Maharishi Vidhya Mandir said that he underwent special training programs right from Class VI and later attended an integrated course offered by his school in association with FIITJEE.

Of the 2.25 lakh who appeared for JEE Main, nearly 1.11 lakh have been declared eligible for JEE Advanced to be held in May, said an official release from Central Board of Secondary Education which conducted the exam in April.

