THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Boys made a clean sweep of all the top 10 ranks in the state engineering entrance exam (KEAM 2024), the results of which were announced by Higher Education Minister R Bindu on Thursday.
Of the 79,044 candidates who appeared for the exam, 58,340 qualified. Of these, 52,500 candidates, including 27,854 boys and 24,646 girls were included in the rank list. The number of students who qualified for the exam and who figured in the rank list rose by 4,261 and 2,829 respectively this year compared to the previous year.
Among the top 100 ranks, 87 were bagged by boys while the remaining 13 ranks went to girls. As many as 75 candidates who figured in the top 100 ranks had cleared the entrance exam in their first attempt while the remaining 25 made it to the top 100 in their second attempt.
While Devanand P from Alappuzha clinched the first rank in the general category, the second and third ranks were bagged by Hafiz Rahman Elikkottil from Malappuram and Allen Johny Anil from Kottayam. Jorden Joy (Kottayam) and Jithin J Joshi (Ernakulam) clinched the fourth and fifth ranks respectively.
While Dhruv Sumesh (Alappuzha) and Hridin S Biju (Kasaragod) were the toppers in the Scheduled Caste category, Abhijith Lal (Idukki) and Andrew Joseph Sam (Kottayam) bagged the top two ranks in the Scheduled Tribe category.
While 24 candidates from Ernakulam figured in the top 100 ranks, 15 from Thiruvananthapuram and 11 from Kottayam also made it to the top 100. Ernakulam district also had the highest number of candidates (6,568) who figured in the rank list. A total of 170 candidates from the district figured in the top 1,000 ranks as well.
Of the top 5,000 ranks, 2,785 were bagged by CBSE students and 2,034 by the state higher secondary stream students. Another 162 candidates who had qualified for the ISC exam also found a place in the top 5,000 ranks.
KEAM 2024, for admission to engineering courses, was conducted as a computer-based test for the first time this year. It was held from June 5 to 10 in 198 exam centres located in the state, Delhi, Mumbai and Dubai.