Hard Work, No Hype: Budgam Girl Achieves Top JEE Score in J&K
Attiya Zehra scores 99.84 percentile, proving that improvement is often built in silence, not spotlight.
Srinagar- Early this year, Attiya Zehra scored 84.10 percentile in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), one of India’s toughest engineering entrance tests. It wasn’t enough for the schools she had hoped for, but she didn’t dwell on the result.
A few months later, she came back with 99.84 percentile, the highest score among female candidates in Jammu & Kashmir.
“I just focused on what I had to do better,” she said.
There was no dramatic overhaul, no change in coaching institutes, no new test prep subscriptions. Attiya kept her schedule tight, cut back on distractions, and stuck to a plan. She revised old material, took mock tests, and kept her phone use minimal. She credits her success to consistency.
A student of Alasma Educational Institute and later Spring Buds School Budgam, Attiya was known by her teachers for being focused and disciplined, though never the kind to raise her hand first or speak the most.
“She was not loud about her efforts,” one of her school teachers recalled. “But she always delivered when it mattered.”
Her family supported her decision to try again. Her father, Ghulam Hassan Khanday, is a Physical Education Master and serves as the Incharge Activity Officer at the District Youth Services and Sports Office in Budgam. Her two older sisters—one a journalist, the other a scholar—have also taken academic and professional paths that required long hours and steady work.
In that sense, Attiya’s result fits into a broader family pattern. “I had role models at home,” she said.
After the result, there was no celebration beyond a few messages and calls. Attiya says she’s happy with the outcome but is already thinking about what comes next.
She’s planning to pursue computer science and hopes to get into one of the top engineering institutes. But for now, she’s just trying to rest after months of focused preparation.
Her advice to students in similar situations is straightforward: “If it doesn’t work out the first time, go back, figure out why, and try again. That’s all I did.” (KO)
