IIT results 2011: Does International Physics Olympiad ensure top JEE rank?

MUMBAI: There is a sign that can foretell a student’s place in the golden JEE rank list even before the IITs put out their results. It is the student’s inclusion in the International Physics Olympiad. Year on year, there has been this queer coincidence that those who go to represent India in the Olympiad top the JEE list a week later.

This year too five top JEE rankers — Prudhvitej Immadi (AIR 1), Shubham Mehta (AIR 2), Burle Sai Kiran (AIR 4) Nisheeth Lahoti (AIR 5) and Sumegha Garg (all-India girl topper) — are on the Olympiad team.

“As mentor to a host of the brightest students of the nation for the past 15 years, I know that the five make a very good team,” said professor Vijay Singh, national coordinator of Science Olympiads.

In the past few years, IITJEE’s all India rank one has been on the physics team too — Shitikanth (JEE 2008 AIR 1) and Nitin Jain (JEE 2009 AIR 1). “The correlation is obvious. After spending so many years in the IIT system and then being a part of the Olympiad committee, I know the two well. My evaluation takes into account all conceptual difficulties in physics which a student would encounter ,” said Singh.

And why physics? “The favourite subject of most students who excel in the JEE is physics.”
Talking about the five, he said they have been hard workers, but have a few critical weaknesses “that need to be urgently addressed. One of them is modern topics like Einstein's theory of relativity . Another is their lamentable experimental skills” .