I told you so. Those were the words Nitin Jain heard most on Monday, a day he spent giving interviews to the media and cutting cakes at home, school and the FIITJEE centre where he took coaching for the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE).

The 17-year-old from Faridabad topped IIT-JEE in the results announced on Monday morning.

“He had been getting top marks all through, and there was a huge gap between Nitin’s marks and that of the second-ranked student in all the phase tests,” said Arnab Dutta, his classmate at FIITJEE.

Vinod Kumar Agarwal, centre head and Chemistry faculty at FIITJEE who tutored Jain for the past two years, said: “He got the top rank at the all-India open practice examination for IITJEE that we conducted. So we were certain that he would be one of the toppers.”

Significantly, Jain’s success comes three days after fellow Faridabad student Tanvi Aggarwal emerged the all-India topper in CBSE Class XII.

His father N C Jain said, “Nitin has stood first in every examination since Class I, and won a gold medal at the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad held at Indonesia last year. In fact, he was the only school student in the five-member team that represented India.”

An all-rounder, Jain has also represented his school at the state-level table tennis championships till Class X.

“Always” interested in computers and physics, Jain doesn’t believe in sitting with books all day: “It’s better to concentrate and study for four hours than just sit there for eight hours. I only started studying for long hours four months before the exam.”

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