Rutuja Warhade secured the first spot among girls and third in all India ranking.
She will join the National Defence Academy in June and hopes to become an army pilot.
Rutuja Warhade, 17, blinked when she saw her name at the number 3 spot on the merit list of the National Defence Academy examination result.
'It must be some other Rutuja,' she thought and scrolled down, but on cross checking saw that it was her own roll number.
She had indeed ranked first among the girls, and third in over-all ranking which included both boys and girls.
More than 150,000 girls competed for the 27 vacancies for girls at the NDA. The academy started enrolling female cadets in 2021.
"I had expected that I would be among the top 10, but did not expect this high rank," said Rutuja whose father is a professor at an engineering college and mother provides tuitions in mathematics.
She has a younger sister in Class 4. No one from her family has served in the armed forces.
A resident of Pune, home of the National Defence Academy, she will join the new batch of cadets at the end of June.
"Training at the NDA is very tough. I want to build stamina and strength in the weeks before I join the academy. I run every day and do pushups, squats etc," says Rutuja who runs 3 km to 3.5 km at one stretch and wants to increase it to 10 km.
The desire to make it to the NDA first came to Rutuja's mind when she was in Class 9 at the Poddar International School.
"I was looking for career options and that is when the Government of India announced entry of girls at NDA."
"I thought it was fascinating."
The following year, when she came to know about the passing out parade at NDA, she called the academy for civilian passes and attended the impressive ceremony with her father.
"That was the first time I visited NDA. Now I will be joining as a cadet. It has been a long journey."
With no connection to the fauj and hailing from a family of civilians, she joined the Yashotej Academy that prepares NDA aspirants.
"I focused entirely on the NDA preparation in those two years."
Pointing out her learnings from the preparations, she says that unlike JEE and NEET where students have to ace physics, chemistry, maths (JEE) and physics, chemistry, biology (NEET), the NDA requires a diverse range of subjects like maths, English, physics, chemistry, biology, history, politics, geography and current affairs.
"Mindset shapes your preparation. For the NDA exam, I feel mindset is more important than physical fitness."
"A good mindset can take your prep to the next level; but a bad one can ruin it."
"Be passionate and motivated. Whenever you are at your lowest there will be something that will push you to work harder and improve," she says.
On tips for clearing the Services Selection Board interview, she says she worked on personality development by participating in activities like quizzes, anchoring etc which was part of the curriculum at the coaching institute.
"It is always best to be honest during the interview," she says of the crucial SSB interview.
"No doubt, the NDA can be cleared through self-preparation, but guidance provided at a coaching institute helps. I was good at studies but if I did not have guidance of my mentors, I doubt I would have reached here."
Rutuja has opted for the Indian Army and hopes to become an army aviation pilot.
The first batch of 17 lady cadets will graduate from the NDA this year.
Around 1 million students appear for the NDA exam every year, of which 8,000 pass the written test and go on to the week long-intense SSB interview.
After clearing the medical test, only 300-350 make it to the academy.
Girls and boys undergo the same training.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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