All 30 from Anand Kumar’s Super 30 crack IIT; success rate of 88% over last 15 years

MUMBAI: All 30 students from Super-30, the Patna-based educational programme for underprivileged kids run by mathematician Anand Kumar have cracked the JEE (Advanced) exam this year, qualifying for entry into the prestigious IITs. With this, the institute has maintained a formidable success rate of 88% over the last 15 years of its existence, with nearly 396 out of its 450 students making it to the IITs so far.

Interestingly, most of the students were from the Bihar Board, which has been in the eye of the storm after nearly 65% of the students who took the Class XII board exams failed. "At Super 30, our students’ hard work and perseverance paid off," said Anand Kumar.

The 30 students all have their own stories of poverty and deprivation, which they have overcome through sheer grit and hard work. There’s Kelvin, son of an unemployed father who teaches yoga in the mornings; a roadside egg seller's son Arbaaz Allam; a farm labourer's son Arjun Kumar and a landless farmer's son Abhishek Kumar.


Also among the 30 is Aditya Anand, son of a factory labourer Gautam Narayan Pandey and Kundan Kumar, son of roadside cloth vendor Manoj Kumar Verma. Twins Sumit Raj and Subham Raj whose father Dhirendra Kumar runs a hardware shop have qualified, as have

Abhishek Kumar whose father is a priest and Waqar Ahmad, whose father is a salesman in a cloth shop.

Founder Anand Kumar said that Super 30 would get bigger now in view of growing demand. "We will now organise tests for selecting the students in different parts of the country and give all the details on the website," he said.

This is the 15th year of Super 30, an initiative under which Anand Kumar mentors 30 students free of cost at his home and provides them food and stay. His entire family gets involved with Super 30. Kumar does not accept any financial assistance from any quarter and manages it with his earnings from evening classes for plus two students.