u/Calm-Recognition1782

I got RT in my 12th cbse board exam in 2 subjects should I try to pass from nios !!??

Same as above

You can say I’m a fool for taking a drop at 98.83 percentile.

I scored 98.83 percentile in JEE Main this year. General, male, West Bengal domicile. For many people, this sounds like a decent enough score to settle in some good college and move on with life. In fact, when I discussed my decision of taking a drop with some of my teachers, almost all of them reacted the same way. Some directly called me a fool, while some tried to explain it politely. They kept saying that my percentile is good enough, the boards result is not even announced yet, and that I am taking unnecessary stress. According to them, I should simply chill, get into a decent college and not waste one full year behind this RAT RACE again.

Honestly, from their perspective, they are not wrong. If someone else told me the same story, even I might have advised him not to drop. But the problem is that they only know my result, they do not know the amount of stupidity and carelessness that brought me here.

The first and biggest mistake I made was overconfidence. The moment I saw 98.83 percentile in JEE Main, I started believing that things were under control. I was so damn confident that I did not even bother applying for backup exams like BITSAT, WBJEE, IAT and others. Somewhere in my mind I thought, “JEE Main decent gaya hai, kuch na kuch toh ho hi jayega.” That confidence made me careless, and now when I look back, it feels like the biggest clown move of my preparation.

Then came CBSE Boards, especially Physics, and that was where everything started falling apart in front of my eyes. During that week I had a very high fever and genuinely could not study properly. I thought somehow I would manage in the exam hall because Physics was never my weakest subject. But that day my brain simply was not braining. I fumbled easy, very easy questions in such a horrible way that even while writing the paper I knew I was messing it up. After coming out of the exam hall, I did not cry, I literally laughed. I laughed because I could not believe what nonsense I had written in questions that I could normally solve without thinking twice. Since that day, this constant fear of “compartment incoming” has been sitting in one corner of my mind.

Now people ask me why I am not even trying JEE Advanced, and the answer is simple: I know I never prepared for Advanced the way it demands. Like most average aspirants, I wasted a huge part of class 11. I did recover a lot in early class 12 and pushed enough to get this percentile in Mains, but deep inside I know my preparation was always mains-oriented. I never built that strong Advanced foundation from the beginning. So sitting in JEE Advanced now just for the sake of saying “at least I appeared” feels meaningless to me. I know I would only get humbled there and come back with even more regret.

That is why this drop is not because I think 98.83 is a bad percentile. It is because I know this number does not reflect my best effort, it reflects a preparation full of loopholes, arrogance and last-moment panic. Every time I think of joining a college right now, one thought keeps hitting me that I never really gave myself one honest, disciplined attempt. I wasted class 11 like a clown, recovered too late, became overconfident after one result, ignored backups, messed up boards, and never prepared for Advanced seriously. If I move on now, I know this regret will stay with me much longer than one drop year ever will.

So yes, maybe my teachers are right. Maybe I am a fool. Maybe this is pure delusion and unnecessary risk. But somewhere inside me I still want to try once again, this time without repeating the mistakes that ruined these two years. I want to prepare for Advanced from the very beginning, stay grounded no matter what percentile or mock score I get, fill every backup exam possible, and most importantly study with the peace that I am not cheating my own potential.

I know there is no guarantee that next year I will get IIT. Hell, there is not even a guarantee that I will score better than this year. Maybe I am living in a huge delusion. But even if next year things go worse, at least I will not have that haunting feeling that I never tried properly when I had the chance. At least I will not have regrets.

So yes, you can say I’m a fool. I probably am. But right now, taking a drop feels less foolish than living my entire life wondering what would have happened if I had just been serious from the start.