Meerut student missed IIT by two marks, self‑taught on YouTube, joins ISRO

The Story in Brief

Sanket Kumar, a youth from Meerut, missed qualifying in JEE Advanced 2021 by two marks. He took a one-year drop and studied without coaching, relying on YouTube lectures and previous years’ question papers. In 2022 he cleared both JEE Main and JEE Advanced and secured admission to the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, for Aerospace Engineering. At IIST he chose to specialise in vibration and acoustics rather than more common areas such as propulsion and aerodynamics.

Sanket earned an 8.2 CGPA at IIST, which led to a direct interview call from the ISRO Centralised Recruitment Board, bypassing the written exam. He impressed the interview panel with technical knowledge and project work and received an appointment letter as Scientist‑Engineer (SC Grade) at ISRO. His family – father Gulshan Kumar, a civil engineer; mother Sunita Singh, a professor; and elder brother Harshit Kumar, a software engineer – supported him during his drop year.

The Indian Opinion

The report highlights an individual success story of persistence and family support. Such narratives are encouraging, but readers should note they spotlight a single outcome and may underplay how results depend on many factors, including prior schooling, access to learning resources and examination variability. The article uses triumphant language such as “turned a heartbreaking near‑miss into a space science career,” which risks implying that the same route will work for all students. Details are thin on what specific projects or interview criteria led to the ISRO appointment, so while Sanket’s achievement is commendable, its broader implications for others remain uncertain.

Original article: Meerut boy missed IIT admission by just 2 marks, self-studied from YouTube, now became a scientist at ISRO (The Times of India)

This story was summarised and commented on by AI from the source linked above.