BHUBANESWAR : Arunima Thakur, who has done the state proud by securing an All India Rank-1 in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)-2025, does not believe in fixed study hours. But, she sets an academic goal for herself every day and ensures she meets it before calling it a day.
From among 50,000 students who appeared for the examination, Arunima scored a percentile of 99.9 bagging the top rank. The Consortium of National Law Universities announced the results earlier this week.
Following the results, 23-year-old Arunima is considering to take up a postgraduate law programme in either National Law University-Delhi or National Law School of India University at Bengaluru.
A native of Rourkela and student of University Law College of Utkal University here, Arunima started preparations for CLAT a year back. And from day one, her strategy for appearing for the examination was clear. “I began with reading newspapers and judgments every day. Since the CLAT exam has lengthy questions, I wanted to improve my reading speed. And then in June, I joined a coaching centre to just take mock tests,” said the topper, who is currently in the final year of her integrated law degree at the law college.
While there were no fixed study hours for her, Arunima set a goal for studying a certain number of chapters every day and she completed the goal before hitting the bed.
“I had expected a very good rank in the CLAT exam but topping it had never occurred in my mind,” said the girl who had also topped the district in Class X exam and scored 98.2 pc in Class XII. She is an alumnus of Delhi Public School, Rourkela.
Daughter of Amitabh Thakur who is a Rourkela Steel Plant employee, Arunima plans to start preparations for the UPSC while pursuing her career in law at one of the top law universities in the country.
While she likes taking part in debates, Arunima pursues playing the flute as a hobby. On Wednesday, Arunima and her parents met Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi who congratulated her on her success.