Delhi girl Gayatri tops CBSE exam with 496/500 in commerce stream

NEW DELHI: Delhi girl and commerce student M Gayatri topped the CBSE Class XII 2015 exams, scoring 496 out of 500. This is not only the second consecutive year that Delhi has thrown up the all India topper, Delhi NCR also accounted for three of the four students who shared the top three positions this year.

Mythili Mishra of Amity International School, Sector 44 Noida, and Saurabh Bhambri of K R Mangalam World School, GK, shared top honours in humanities with a score of 495. B Arjun from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pattom (Thiruva nanthapuram), was the science topper with 495 marks.

Overall, girls raced ahead yet again: 87.6% passed the exams, against 77.8% of boys. Gayatri, a student of New Green Field School in Saket, scored 99.2%, including straight hundreds in accountancy , business studies and mathematics. “I took music classes to de-stress myself,“ the lanky 18-year-old told TOI.

“I realize how important it is not to overburden yourself with studies during board examinations. I love singing, it helped me focus more on my studies and whenever I felt lost, my parents were there to cheer me up.“

While Delhi bagged three of the top four slots, it was Thiruvananthapuram that recorded the best pass percentage of CBSE's 10 regions, at 95.41%. Chennai followed with 91.14% while Delhi was in third position with 86.13%.

The overall pass percentage of 82% was, however, 0.7% lower than last year ­ the first drop since 2012. A total of 10,07,322 students appeared for the exam this year, 21,000 more than last year, and all regions saw a dip in the pas percentage.

Institution-wise too, barring Central Tibetan schools, there has been a significant drop on this count. Kendriya Vidyalayas fared the worst, logging a fall of 2.7% over last year.

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas showed the best pass percentage, at 96.82%, which too was a drop of 0.7% from last year. Private schools didn't buck the trend, either.

There was a marginal drop in the total number of candidates in the special category as well: 2,125 against 2,275 in 2014. The pass percentage, however, improved from 83% in 2014 to 85.07% this year.

The topper in this category is Vidhi Maheshwari from Chettinad Vidyashram, Chennai who scored 490 out of 500 in the commerce stream. A total of 123 candidates from the special category scored 90% and above in the exams this year, including 15 who scored 95% and above.