Meet UAE’s NEET topper and find out how she made the cut

Sharjah: An Indian student in the UAE is on top of the world after beating the odds and making the cut in the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) UG, the qualifying exam for all streams of undergraduate medical courses in India, which was held in July.

Thankful to her education in the UAE that enabled her to become a high achiever, Divyasree Sureshbabu from Delhi Private School (DPS) Sharjah secured 680 marks out of 720 with an all-India rank of 701 among 1.78 million candidates who appeared for the exam in India and other countries.

According to the Indian Consulate, 1,486 students sat for NEET at three centres in the UAE.

While the overall NEET topper secured 715 marks, only 23 students scored above 650. Being one among them was itself a great achievement for Divyasree. She is also extremely happy that her NEET percentile is over 99.94 per cent. But she was more excited when her school declared her as the UAE topper.

“My expectation was to score above 670 marks,” Divyasree told Gulf News. “Considering that this time we were given a different question paper from the Indian students and that there were several claims about the exceeding difficulty of the UAE paper over the Indian question paper, I am just very grateful that I have scored pretty well. I felt extremely blessed when I got to know that I am the UAE topper. I lost the title of outside India topper by just seven marks. But I am quite satisfied and feel even more motivated to reach greater heights in college,” said the high achiever, who had also topped the science stream in her school with 98.2 per cent in CBSE 12th board exam

Proud moment

In a statement to Gulf News, Vandana Marwaha, principal of DPS Sharjah said: “It is indeed a proud moment for Delhi Private School Sharjah and for myself, as I extend my heartiest congratulations to our student, Divyasree Sureshbabu, and her family for her remarkable achievement as the UAE NEET Topper 2022.

“As an institution, we have a dedicated learning plan for our Grade XII students to support their academics in addition to their regular classes. This helps them greatly in their preparation for their competitive exams such as NEET, JEE. Being witness to the stupendous success of Divyasree is a gratifying moment for my entire team and I wish that she scales greater heights in all her future endeavours. She has our blessings and best wishes always,” she added.

How she did it

Explaining how she prepared for the tough exam, Divyasree said NEET was “nearly like my heartbeat for two years”.

“I kept myself away from all parties and get-togethers. I had a unique strategy for every subject.”

Divyasree said solving multiple-choice questions (MCQs) was her top priority. “Solving as many MCQs as possible helped me a lot to develop an interest and strengthen my knowledge. In physics, I solved many MCQ questions from several top sources. The biggest trick under my sleeves was the master formula sheet that I had prepared. For chemistry, I devoted a lot of my time in developing a deep understanding from the NCERT textbooks.”

Her advice to students aspiring to sit for NEET exams is to make sheets for reactions, trends, exceptions and formulae.

“Using Biology NCERT as the ultimate source and solving as many MCQs is the magical trick to crack the biology section. During the last 50 days before the actual exam, I ensured that I sincerely solved a mock question paper every day with physical OMR and question paper. This helped me to effectively manage my time during the exam. In fact, since NEET was more or less like the 51st paper that I did, considering I solved those many mocks, I didn’t face stress at all.”

Since her concepts were highly strong, CBSE boards was not very difficult for Divyasree.

Constant support

Thanking her family for their constant support and encouragement, Divyasree said: “My parents, Lakshmi and Sureshbabu Subramani and sister Harishri are the ultimate backbone of my success. The amount of sacrifice they put in and their firm faith and trust kept me moving.”

She also profusely thanked the UAE and her teachers in her entrance coaching institute and her school for playing a pivotal role in her success.