PANAJI
When Vasco lass Gracina Colaco sat for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) (UG), exam back in early May, she was confident she "will score" and that's what she's exactly done.
The results declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA), has revealed that Colaco who is a student of St Andrew's Higher Secondary School, Vasco, secured 680 marks at the tough NEET which is a stunning 99.91 percentile.
She thus topped at the qualifying exam for admission to medicine schools across the country from among the 4,000-odd Goa students who sat for the exam.
There is also another aspect that makes Colaco's feat even more spectacular -- she hails from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community and ranks 10th among all students who took the test from her community across India. Her country-wide rank is 1,738.
Daughter of former Goa Shipyard Limited staff Joao Colaco and Inacina Fernandes, Gracina is focussed on choosing a medical school outside Goa and will take a call after the counselling sessions, according to her family source.
Interestingly, it wasn't any elite school that Colaco pursued her class XI and XII studies but the Vasco church school -- St Andrew's Higher Secondary School -- run by the Diocesan Society of Education. She took coaching though Aakash Institute.
Meanwhile more than 2,200 students from Goa who took the NEET exam have qualified for graduate programmes in medicine and allied fields such as dentistry, nursing and homeopathy and ayurveda. NEET scores are also counted for graduate programmes in the veterinary field.
