Percentile Didn’t Decide My Future
After scoring 29 percentile in JEE and joining a low-tier BCA college, he chose to focus on the skills he had already been building for years. Freelancing, internships and earning his first payment showed him that one entrance exam did not have to decide his future.
Where it started
I scored around 29 percentile in JEE and almost failed my boards. After that, I joined a very low-tier college for BCA. For a lot of people, a result like that can feel like everything has gone wrong. There was definitely a short moment of regret when I saw my result. But I had already been building technical skills since Class 8 and doing freelance work even while preparing for JEE. So after that initial disappointment, I went back to work.
Where I got stuck
The hardest part about being in a low-tier college wasn’t people judging me. I don’t think anyone worth listening to should judge someone based only on their college. The real problem was opportunities. In better colleges, a lot of opportunities are already around you. In my situation, I had to find things myself. Internships, freelance work, learning, networking — you have to be much more proactive. That makes things harder, but in a way it can also be useful because you learn how to create opportunities for yourself.
What changed
I kept focusing on the thing I was actually interested in: technology. I had been building my skills long before JEE, so I didn’t see one entrance exam as a reason to stop. While preparing for JEE, I did freelance projects and earned around ₹1.4 lakh in six months. In my first year of college, I completed two paid internships and continued freelancing. Instead of waiting for my college to give me opportunities, I tried to create them myself.
After that
The moment things really clicked for me was when I received my first payment. That was when I realised I could actually create value using my skills regardless of what college I was in. Across roughly 18 months, I earned around ₹3.9 lakh through freelancing and internships. I’m currently in my second year, and I still have to work harder to find opportunities because of where I study. But I no longer look at my JEE result as something that defines what I can do.
What stayed with me
One college entrance exam cannot decide your life. The world is much bigger than JEE, NEET, or any single exam. If you don’t get the result you wanted, don’t lose hope. Find something you’re genuinely interested in and build skills around it. Your college can affect how easily opportunities come to you, but your skills and what you do with them matter far more in the long run. If you feel like your future is over because of one result, it probably isn’t. You may just have to build your own route forward.
