CLAT 2016 Topper Viraj Ananth to join NLSIU Bangalore – Know more about how he got AIR 1

CLAT 2016 topper is Viraj Ananth, a resident of Sadashivanagar, Bengaluru. He has studied from Bishop Cotton Boys' School till Class X and completed his Class XI and Class XII from Vidyashilp Academy, Jakkur.

Viraj’s father works as a Senior Executive at Canadian Aviation Electronics and his mother is into education.

A science stream student, Viraj scored an impressive 174.5 in CLAT exam. On being asked how he felt to get AIR-1 in CLAT, he said, “I honestly didn’t expect to be the topper. I put in a lot of hardwork and I hoped to get in to the top three NLUs and be among the top 100-200 rank holders but being the topper totally took me by surprise”.

Shiksha spoke exclusively to Viraj about his prep strategy and experience of giving CLAT 2016. You can read the detailed interview below.

Q. Congratulations on securing AIR-1 in CLAT 2016. Could you tell us your score overall and section-wise as well?

Ans. I got 174.5/200. I am not completely aware of my sectional scores because the CLAT authorities have not released the same yet. But based on my calculations, I got 19 in Maths and 50/50 in Legal. Mainly, I feel I did well in Legal.

Q. Whom do you attribute your success to?

Ans. I do not have any role models but I would like to thank my parents for their support and a lot of friends who helped to keep me motivated throughout the year. I also had a lot of mentors in law colleges who helped me a lot.

One of my mentors was Samyak from NLSIU, Bangalore. He helped me a lot. He cleared a lot of my doubts. He also gave me tips on how to study in the last month before the CLAT exam and other than him I had a lot of friends in the law colleges and I used to speak to them to get different inputs on how to prepare for the law entrance exams.

Everyone has different strategies and different things work better for different individuals and I tried to incorporate inputs given by them in my prep strategy.        

Q. Did you take any coaching for this exam?

Ans. I did not take any classroom coaching. But I had signed up for a lot of mocks. I signed up for the Career Launcher’s mocks and CLAT Possible mocks.

But the coaching I did go for right before CLAT 2016 was in the month of April when I joined Sriram Law Academy in Chennai. That was the only classroom coaching I joined, rest my preparation all depended on mocks and self-study, that is, different books.

Q. As per you, in CLAT 2016 were any topics given more weightage?

Ans. Starting with Legal Reasoning, majority of the questions were from Torts.

Torts is a topic which I feel is extremely easy. Another thing about Torts is that there is a very limited pool from which they draw questions because all Torts questions are based on Case Laws from The UK and there are a select number of these case laws which keep repeating. There are around 300-400 questions and if you do them then you are done with Torts.

That was for Torts, now coming to Mathematics, people have this huge fear of Maths and that is granted because every year there are a few questions which are very difficult. But in Maths, once you do the core chapters, which are:

• Profit and loss
• Simple interest
• Compound interest
• Time-speed-distance
• Time and Work
• Trains, Boats & Streams etc.

Once you do these chapters, you are done with Maths. Doing these chapters, you will be able to score atleast 12-13 marks in Maths and preparing for these 12-13 marks is easy. Only after this, there is an uphill journey. People who are scared of Maths, for them I would advise that try and get atleast 13-14 marks in this section. That much is manageable.

Q. What are your hobbies?

Ans. I am extremely passionate about public speaking, Model United Nations and Debating. I did a lot of that in my Class XI and XII.

I also helped initiate and thereafter worked on a start-up known as InterMind Global. In this, we would tie-up with schools and organise public speaking workshops where we trained students. We would bring students from colleges who had experience in those fields and we would have them train students. Secondly, we would organize Model United Nations and other competitions.

Q. What other law entrance exams apart from CLAT did you take?

Ans. I gave AILET, SET and LSAT. I gave almost all the main law entrance exams. LSAT was my back-up. If I did not get through any of the top six NLUs then I was planning on joining Jindal Global Law School.

Q. Was Law always your first preference?

Ans. I was always fixated on law surprisingly. I have never really had an interest in any other field. In Class XI my mother suggested that I consider law. Also, in many of the Model United Nations in which I participated, I used to often discuss legal agendas and this just triggered some sense of interest and then when I enquired about the CLAT exam, I liked the pattern and so I thought I would give it a shot. 

Q. How was the CLAT exam this year? Was the test pattern, similar or different to last year?

Ans. The exam pattern was completely different and that is why I said that the CLAT exam is completely unpredictable. The GK section was similar because it contained more of Current Affair questions. The Logical Reasoning section was completely different. In 2015, the Logic section was very difficult and many questions in it were completely undoable. But this year the Logical Reasoning section was very easy.

I guess the only difference in the exam pattern would be that the exam was simpler this time around. Maths was pretty simple and questions were very basic. Last year, the Maths section was such that an average student wouldn’t be able to solve more than 10 questions. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to solve more than 10 questions.

Q. Which college would you like to join? How would you rank law schools in the country?

Ans. My first preference was always, National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.

If I was to rank the NLUs then it would be – NLSIU Bangalore, National Academy of Legal Study & Research (NALSAR) University of Law, The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS), National Law University Jodhpur (NLUJ), Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) and National Law Institute University, Bhopal.

Those are the top six NLUs and I believe almost everyone would be ranking them in the same manner. If I got through NLU Delhi, then I would probably rank it after NLU Kolkata.

Q. Any tips for students who are planning to take the exam next year?

Ans. I will try and give you some different tips because more-or-less the same advice is offered by everyone.

Firstly, try and find a mentor. This is an extremely important thing. Anyone you know in a law school, try and find them and ask them to mentor you because this is extremely important for two reasons:

1. They help you with preparation, strategy and basically guide your preparation.
2. They keep you motivated because getting demotivated is very easy and quote possible during the year.

Secondly, a thing that might not work for everyone, but it worked for me. What I did is that I found a study partner. I studied with a friend of mine who was also giving CLAT. He also performed very well in CLAT. He got a rank of 79. We put in a lot of study hours together. Apart from that, it is also more interesting to study with someone than alone. We would quiz each other in GK, we would analyse our mocks. So, if possible find someone who is also giving CLAT and study with them.

Thirdly, focus on GK because it is easily the make or break section. In my opinion, all other exam sections are manageable. I mean, if I had to study for the Logical Reasoning section, 1-2 weeks before the exam, I would somehow be able to do that and same is the case with other sections. But GK is something that needs consistent preparation. I know I put in more than 1,000 hours into preparing for the GK section and 80% of my prep was for GK and I still managed only a 37 in the exam. I know that is a good enough score but a lot of people beat me in GK. There is so much information and you need to keep yourself updated and so students should start preparing for GK right now itself.

Q. What are your future plans? Any specialisation you wish to pursue in law in your master’s?

Ans. I am not too sure about my future plans. But what I know is that I want to approach it with an open mind. I want to definitely try everything out at a law college and I am sure my perspective will change as I enter college.

But something that I have always been passionate about is – International Humanitarian Law. I would also like to explore Corporate Law and something that is not too common but which has triggered my interest, when I read about it a few weeks back is Sports Law. It is something new and want to explore it. So, I want to try out new things and find out what works best for me and then decide.

I believe I will have a totally different perspective on life itself after 5 years and so I would make these decisions then.

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