The unlucky ones who could not make the cut in the Joint Entrance Examination Mains 2016 are an unhappy lot. Some have blamed their failure on the general difficulty level while others have taken solace in the fact that their preparation wasn’t up to the mark. The rants of such students have flooded the social media sites. Some of them are considering the option of taking a year off and appearing for the entrance exam again next year. PaGaLGuY weighs the pros and cons of this option to see if it will reap rich rewards for students.

By dropping a year, a student will get ample time to prepare well for the entrance test. There would be no tension of board exams so a student will be able to devote the entire year for IIT JEE preparation. Also, it would be a case of once bitten, twice shy that suggests that previous year’s experience will stand a student in good stead for next year’s exam paper.

There are some disadvantages as well. Spending a year at home, preparing for the exam may not be that easy as it sounds. A student can easily get de-motivated during the drop year. A student must stay away from people who aren’t positive about taking a drop year. Having peers to motivate you will help. Your last year’s rank don’t matter in the larger scheme of things; what is important is your performance in the exam. Nobody is going to ask you why you took a drop year in the long run. So make the best use of time. You might end up losing a year, but that will not matter as long as you are an IITian. Dropping a year isn’t a bad idea, after all.