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For many Indian students, an AIR 1 comes with an obvious next step. For Sarvesh Gupta, it did not.
The physics student secured All India Rank 1 in Physics in IIT JAM 2026. The Joint Admission Test for Masters opens routes to postgraduate programmes at IITs and other institutions.
But Gupta's next destination is not an IIT. He has joined the Integrated PhD programme in Theoretical Physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.
That choice makes more sense when his goal is considered first: he wants to become a theoretical physicist and eventually work as a researcher and professor.
Gupta grew up in Nepal, where his father is a government school teacher. His interest in physics began around Classes 10 to 12. Mathematics initially attracted him too, but he gradually found himself more drawn to physics and the problems it posed.
After school, he completed his BSc in Physics and began looking more seriously at research as a career.
His interests eventually narrowed towards theoretical physics, particularly gravity, cosmology and gravitational waves. His work and learning also included mathematical foundations, time-series analysis and gravitational-wave detection.
TIFR had already entered his plans before the admission decision. While researching institutions for theoretical physics, he repeatedly came across TIFR. He later visited its Mumbai campus after winning a competition that included a TIFR laboratory visit.
Seeing the research environment in person gave him another reason to consider it.
Gupta's preparation was built around routine rather than giving up everything else.
He told Chandigarh University in an interview that his day included a gym session, lectures, college, problem-solving practice and videos. He also made time for friends and conversations with his roommates.
The key was keeping study and leisure within fixed parts of the day.
For difficult questions, he practised with friends and discussed different ways of approaching problems. Teachers also played a role. After clearing the written stage for TIFR, he sought help from a department teacher, who gave him topics to prepare and conducted a mock interview with him.
When the IIT JAM result appeared, Gupta said he initially could not believe the rank. He had scored 60 marks and expected a much lower rank based on his own estimates. Then he saw the number: AIR 1.
This was not simply a decision to reject IITs.
It was a decision based on the kind of physics he wanted to study.
TIFR's Mumbai campus houses a Department of Theoretical Physics, alongside departments working in areas including astronomy, high-energy physics, condensed matter physics, and nuclear and atomic physics. Its graduate school offers an Integrated PhD route in Physics.
For Gupta, that research orientation matched the destination he had already imagined for himself.
His story is therefore less about turning down an IIT and more about what happens after a student gets the rank everyone else is celebrating.
An entrance exam can measure performance on one particular test. It cannot decide whether a student wants engineering, academia, fundamental science, industry or something else.
Gupta got the rank. He then chose the work he actually wanted to spend his life doing.
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