From terrace Wi-Fi to IIT Delhi: How this Mumbai student secured AIR 2,456 in JEE Advanced

Mumbai student Abhishek Sharma secured an All India Rank of 2,456 in JEE Advanced despite preparing for the exam with limited financial resources and unreliable internet access. He secured an OBC-NCL rank of 415 and is now pursuing a BTech at IIT Delhi, Moneycontrol reported on Saturday.

His family lived in a rented house in Lokmanya Tilak Nagar, a slum area in Mumbai, where they paid ₹3,000 a month in rent. His father worked as a labourer at a steel fabrication company and the family had limited financial resources.

Abhishek had limited access to books, coaching, stable internet and a dedicated place to study, resources that many JEE Advanced aspirants rely on during their preparation.

Instead, he relied on whatever resources were available around him and continued studying despite the practical difficulties.

How he prepared for JEE Advanced

Internet access was one of the challenges during his preparation. When the mobile data on his phone was exhausted, he would go to the terrace and connect to his neighbour’s Wi-Fi so that he could continue his studies.

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The arrangement was far removed from the conventional image of a student preparing for a highly competitive examination in a dedicated study space.

His home environment was also shaped by the family’s financial circumstances. Living in a rented ₹3,000-a-month house while his father worked as a labourer meant that expensive coaching facilities and other costly preparation resources were not necessarily within easy reach.

Yet these limitations did not prevent Sharma from pursuing his goal. He continued preparing for the examination and eventually secured a rank that opened the door to one of India’s premier engineering institutions.

From JEE Advanced rank 2,456 to IIT Delhi

When the JEE Advanced results were announced, his circumstances were not reflected in the rank list. His name appeared with an All India Rank of 2,456 and an OBC-NCL rank of 415.

The result marked a significant step in his journey from a financially constrained household in Mumbai to IIT Delhi.

Sharma is now pursuing his BTech at IIT Delhi, one of the Indian Institutes of Technology that students across the country compete for through the JEE examination system.

His journey also illustrates the practical challenges that financial constraints can create during competitive-exam preparation. A lack of reliable internet, limited study infrastructure and fewer educational resources can make preparation more difficult.

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For Sharma, however, these circumstances became problems to work around rather than reasons to abandon his goal.

The journey from a ₹3,000-a-month rented home in Lokmanya Tilak Nagar to IIT Delhi was built through persistence and the use of whatever resources were available. From studying with a neighbour’s Wi-Fi on a terrace to securing a JEE Advanced rank of 2,456, his experience shows the very different circumstances in which students can prepare for the same examination.