IIT-JEE: It's the girl power in Surat

SURAT: This year girls have outscored boys in the IIT entrance examination in south Gujarat, including in Surat. Three girls - Hetal and Priyanka Masne from Surat and Ami Tanna of Valsad - have cracked the IIT-JEE.
For the first time in Surat, Hetal Rathod, a girl, belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC), has achieved what many only dream of - admission into IIT.Hetal is a daughter of a journalist and is the eldest child in the family. She is interested in pursuing a course in aerospace engineering.
"I will either do aerospace engineering or computer science from IIT, Bombay," said Hetal, who has got 311 rank in the SC category. She had passed class XII with 80 per cent marks in 2011.
"She could have got admission in any one of the many National Institute of Technology in the country. However, she was determined to study only at the IIT. She studied hard. We are proud of her," said Hetal's father Keshav Rathod.
Priyanka is keen to study instrumentation engineering. Mathematics has been her first love. "Generally, girls opt for biology but she took mathematics," said her father, Raju Masne, chief manager, Gail. Priyanka's elder brother is a student of second year MBBS. He too had cleared the IIT-JEE, but was more interested in medicine.
Priyanka is sure of getting into ISM, Dhanbad. "My father is an electrical engineer. I want to study instrumentation," she said.
Ami Tanna scored 92 per cent in class X and 85 per cent in class XII examinations conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education. She spent three years in Kota preparing for the IIT-JEE.
Bhaskar Tanna, her father, who is a manager in a rural bank in Valsad, said, "She was keen on getting into the IITs and had given IIT JEE twice earlier. However, she achieved success this time with 4010 rank."