Thane-based Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School scored a hat-trick with three of its students topping the all-India level to bag the first, second and third rank in the Indian School Certificate (ISC, class XII) exam results announced Sunday (July 24) evening. While the school’s Upasana Nandi topped the country’s ISC exams, Bhagyashri Sisosdia and Dhruvi Pandya garnered the second and third all-India rank respectively.

The Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School (estb. 1969) has always been amongst the top performing schools academically. However, this is the first time the school has made it to the top three all-India ranking.

“This is a celebration of the journeys of our students. I am proud of my three all-India toppers –Upasana, Bhagyashri and Dhruvi. Also kudos to our teachers who persevered and adapted to the different modes of teaching-learning. Their openness to dialogues with students really worked well for the students. We also have a Youth World Champion in rifle shooting, Rudranksh Patil who despite his busy events schedule did very well in his boards,” says Revathi Srinivasan, director- education and principal, Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School.  

Upasana Nandi is one of the 18 students from across the country who  topped the exams scoring 99.75 percent. “This was a real surprise but of the best kind. Of course, it goes without saying, it couldn’t have happened without the continuous support of my parents and teachers,” says the science stream student. She plans to take up research in biotechnology or microbiology in the future.

All-India second ranker, Bhagyashri Sisodia who scored 99.5 percent says she is overwhelmed by the congratulatory calls and is still digesting the news of her ranking. She is amongst the 75 second rank holders in the country.  

Quizzed about her efforts she says, “While people expect top scorers to put in lots of effort, studying three-four hours at a stretch, it wasn’t so in my case. I put in an hour or so studying each topic and took lots of study breaks too. This year was a roller coaster with online studies and  two exams. With the multiple choice questions (MCQs) in the first semester and written exam in the second, I focused on the key words and writing short and to the point answers. Our teachers came up with creative ideas to keep us engaged throughout the year.” The commerce stream student wants to explore a future in business analytics, finance or marketing.   

Dhruvi Pandya, one of the country’s third rankers amongst 91 others says she had to see the merit list to believe the news. Keen on pursuing chartered accountancy (CA), the commerce stream student is back attending her CA classes on Monday afternoon. “Knowing that the second semester papers would be subjective, I used to solve old board exam papers as well as prelim papers of other schools. Our teachers provided us with the solutions to these papers. I think the practice really helped me,” says she. Dhruvi who has always wanted to be a CA, hopes to clear her CA exams in the first attempt itself.     

Maharashtra’s overall pass percentage for the ISC exams is 99.76 percent this year. The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) conducted class X and XII exams in two phases in the absence of regular schools for most part of the academic year, 2021-22. The semester one exam held in November-December 2021 was held in the  MCQ format while the second semester exams held in May-June this year was an offline written exam. Except for the geometrical and mechanical drawing and art subjects, all semester one subject marks were halved and added to the semester two subject and practical marks to arrive at the final scores.