Beating nearly 1.50 lakh candidates across the country to the score, 22-year-old Ankit Goyal, an employee of a private firm in the City, topped Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2014 in the Electrical Engineering stream, the results of which were announced on Friday.

Only 16.84 per cent candidates have qualified for admissions to postgraduate programmes in IITs and for employment in some of public sector undertakings where the score is used for screening candidates.

Out of 10,33,625 candidates registered for the exam, 8,89,156 appeared and 1,49,694 qualified, said a press release from GATE 2014 organising chairperson Prof GP Raja Sekhar. For electrical engineering alone, 1,41,799 wrote the exam. In all, 21 per cent of those qualified are female candidates. 

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Goyal, who is from Delhi and is employed with Qualcomm India Private Limited, said: “For the past four months, I have been preparing rigorously. Every alternate day I was taking tests. I knew the pattern. I was clear about the approach. I was very methodical and did not deviate from my preparation at any point.”

A graduate from IIT Indore and gold medalist, he was awarded the President of India Gold Medal for excelling in academics. However, he will not pursue higher studies at present. “I will have to support my family. Even if I get a scholarship, I cannot afford not to be working at this point in time.” 

He wrote the GATE last year too and got an All India Rank 8. “I wanted to see if I could better my score. Last year, I could not believe that I got Rank 8 among lakhs of students. This time too the results are yet to sink in.” Goyal, who aims to be an entrepreneur, said he would pursue Master of Arts after setting up his own venture. This year, for the first time, GATE was conducted online.