u/Manthan10

2026 dropper here, here's my story.

In the year 2023, I decided to join a local coaching institute near my home. It wasn't a reputed name just some random classes. They gaslighted me into believing JEE is everything in the world. Well, the class timings, the teachers it never clicked along with them always burdening you with endless homework every single day and then physically punishing if it wasn't completed. This exhausted me so badly and ruined my mental health totally, I quit on studies and JEE itself despite everyone saying at least try, both of my mains and boards went horribly. 63ile and 73% in 12th. It seemed over, I was going to join a private or semi-government institute and focusing on skills, but then came endless taunting, nightmare behaviour from others was being insulted for breathing. I felt so guilty about my life and my existence, maybe everyone was right, only way to be happy is to crack JEE.

Got motivated, after hard convincing parents, finally drop year from PW Vidyapeeth Offline, went the 1st day OMG, now this is a JEE coaching, it turns out my old coaching legit taught us basic NCERT and expected us to solve mains level questions in bulk. I realised I had made a mistake, it wasn't my fault, the coaching was bad and I was at absolute 0 in studies. It was already July by the time; I took the drop. Just 6 months to grind, obviously ain't nobody teaching from beginning, had trouble grasping some concepts and tried, ended up getting 84ile in January with limited syllabus, not bad but the potential was there imagine the improvement in April, studied day and night in Feb and March, had 8S2, the final showdown and messed up badly, got baited by options and thanks to high cutoffs, I got an embarrassing 71ile, since I already had gotten 84ile, that was it, the final result.

I will probably get a mid-tier IPU that too CSE branch, my parents are happy with my result and even my friends are, but there is a thing missing, my own happiness, Am I satisfied with my result to an extent yeah, but I think underperformed considering the fact well I technically was a dropper even though my 2 years were wasted thanks to school and studying NCERT.

I think if I take a double drop, my result will improve drastically and I get my dream college of DTU/NSUT but my parents aren’t allowing me for that, they are saying studying for JEE is a waste of another year, you can’t improve further at all, your basics are screwed, just move on in life, learn some coding which will help you get a job.

But I disagree with them, what I have seen online, JEE is everything, people are filtered on basis of their ranks, people with low ranks like me are deemed undesirable, and will be never be respected. We will be bullied for our marks everywhere we go, I honestly feel like I will get ragged in college after I tell my marks. I don’t think I deserve anything and everything wrong with me can only be fixed by getting good marks in this very exam, everything ahead will not matter, like even if I get success in any other exam or field, people will say but you failed JEE and that’s the most important thing in your life. Even my future generations will be laughing at me that look at the pathetic college, I studied from. I have accepted I am going to be harassed for rest of my life for this performance in JEE. I am a failure as I couldn’t even crack this exam. I thought about studying for GATE, but later found out recruiters value B.Tech students more than M.Tech, so my M.Tech degree is going to be irrelevant along with the fact that B.Tech students in my college will make fun of me and say he couldn’t crack JEE the tougher exam than GATE. About learning the coding part, I have seen people say that they have solved several coding problems but because of the fact they were from a tier 3 college, didn’t get placed. Meanwhile their friend who slept 15 hours a day in a Tier 1 college is now going to earn 12 LPA at minimum meanwhile the skilled guy is unemployed. So, do skills even matter more than the college tier? I feel like if I go to a recruiter for an interview off-campus, he will laugh at me and kick me out the second after learning what my college is? Get out son, we only hire people from tier 1 colleges. You all should be unemployed beggars on the street, if I didn’t want to end up like that, should have studied for JEE. I will have to try off-campus as there are no placements in a tier 3 colleges. Even the mass recruiters have stopped fresher hiring because of AI who is going to eat all the jobs and only people that are safe from it are Tier 1 folks. They are garlanded, everyone respects them and wants to be like them, they all will get placed easily and will be earning lakhs per months Meanwhile I am just another loser. I will have 0 savings, either unemployment or like 3 LPA job for life. Also, did I mention the fact that the recruiters also care about your 10th and 12th marks and ones below 75% won’t be able to sit in placements or off campus either.

I regret my life, I wish my parents had enrolled me in coaching centre in 6th itself, so I could have had head start over other kids. That would have been so much valuable than stupid Cartoons and matches I watched back in 2018 and 2019. If I have kids,( which woman will even want to marry a dude with that pathetic of a JEE rank who is going to be unemployed and broke) they want to pursue JEE, I am enrolling them in coaching ASAP so at least they can get a good rank and not be bullied for rest of their lives and have to struggle like I will. That rank is worth more than anything and everything I have experienced in my life and probably what they will experience too as well. That rank will have them earning crazy, so it is worth it at the end of the day.

Only way all this remorse can ever be resolved is if I take another drop and finally get a respectable rank, but my parents aren’t letting me take a drop, they want me to learn some skills which are going to be useless because I didn’t crack the required college for it. Recruiters care more about %ile and 12th marks than they ever do about skills. I have stopped enjoying stuff in my life, only thing I want is rank, I would sacrifice stuff in my life if it meant my result card will show good rank. Rather be broke and be living in a hut in a village and get 99.99 %ile than whatever my current situation is. My parents are going to destroy the biggest opportunity of my life by not allowing me to take another drop when it’s an option, nobody is going to care that it took me 4 years to achieve what others do in 2. They think some skills will be able to impress the recruiters into hiring me, but I will face humiliation from them. when they see my resume. I likely won’t be able to convince them for another drop, they think my basics of PCM are really bad and just because of that I shouldn’t take another drop as magically won’t randomly start understanding Physics but it worked for Chemistry in my 1st drop year so why not Physics?, I feel like my life is already over and completely useless at the age of 18 because of an awful decision of joining a terrible coaching 3 year ago due to which I have completely ruined my life and won’t be able to rebuild it ever again.

Sometimes, I want to reborn and study properly for JEE in a proper coaching environment where I wasn’t physically and mentally punished by the teachers, actually taught relevant syllabus for JEE by the teachers, my school life was good. I had a friend group and we enjoyed together. I would have properly cracked JEE in that environment, I got 84ile by studying for just 6 months. Imagine I had proper guidance for just 2 years. I want to invent time travel and go back in time to fix my Mistakes in the year 2023. I would be a happy man, respected by others and not a joker who everyone bullies, laughs at. Nowadays, I am sitting idle at home, trying everything to convince my parents for it, they aren’t bulging nor am I. I was playing a mobile game and I lost a match in that game and all I thought was if I had gotten a good rank in JEE, maybe I could have won this game? Maybe if I had gotten a good rank, she would have never left and actually listened to me. I actually don’t even feel like going to college, because memories, college life is for those who crack something in life and achieve good rank not for fools who couldn’t even crack a tier 1 college. I will be unemployed and begging on streets as people in tier 3 end up like that so why should I unnecessarily waste fees for 8 semesters? Like my parents toiled hard to earn it and I am going to blow it up for some tier 3 college? Not a good investment to me. If you are going to end up broke and at home rather, do it right now than after spending fees and 4 years older, learn whatever business my parents are doing right now, that would be better than B.Tech from tier 3 college with no placement.

Am I over thinking a lot? Because whatever I said are thoughts that haunt me every single second. Are tier 3 colleges and ragging concerns that bad? Am I actually going to end up broke and unemployed begging on the streets like my local coaching teachers told me, the fate which awaits all those who can’t crack a good college from JEE?

Note: Whatever knowledge I have about recruiters and student behaviour I have is from seniors and students here on reddit and X, whatever they said about tier 3 colleges, I have said that in my post. Dude, if it was 1 single post, I would have agreed it was just fear mongering but it was a bunch of posts from different seniors and they all agreed, 1 post and 1 person can be fear mongering but an entire bunch of posts and comment sections that’s not fear mongering, maybe it’s truth then.

I am so scared for the future and what it holds for me. It’s like a pitch-black dark tunnel I feel like; I am going to be forced to step in that tunnel very soon. Please help me, other wise it seems like my life is a goner.

What to choose tag or branch?