I failed every entrance exam I appeared for, but one thing still gives me peace to this day–I never let become major financial burden on my father.

I am 19 years old male. In 2021, I passed my CBSE Class 10 board examinations with 90% marks. This gave my father immense confidence in me, and he truly began to believe that I was a sincere student with a promising future. He wanted me to take admission in a private school near our home for Science, where the monthly fee was ₹8,500. We come from a lower-middle-class family, but my father has always been willing to make every possible sacrifice for our education. He was prepared to compromise on food just to ensure that my studies were fully supported.

Along with that, he also advised me to enroll in FIITJEE for JEE preparation, where the two-year fee was approximately ₹2–3 lakh. Fortunately, I refused both options. Instead, I took admission in a reputed government school in Delhi for Science and purchased a ₹4,000 PW batch. Then, in Class 12, I bought two additional PW batches totaling ₹8,000, along with the Cengage Maths series for ₹3,000. In this way, the total amount spent on my education during Classes 11 and 12 was only around ₹15,000.

However, despite these opportunities, I did not study sincerely, and in the end, I scored only 70% in my Class 12 CBSE board examinations. I also failed JEE Main 2023. After that, I took a drop year and purchased an online batch worth ₹30,000, but I failed JEE Main 2024 as well. Then I took a second drop year. This time, both my parents strongly urged me to join offline coaching at least once, but I still firmly refused and purchased only a PW batch worth ₹4,500. And, I failed JEE Main 2025.

I made many mistakes, and because of me, my father experienced deep sorrow and disappointment. But one decision still gives me some relief. I never forced him to bear a heavy financial burden for my education, whether through expensive private school fees or lakhs of rupees in offline coaching. I know that even after spending such enormous amounts of money, I might still have failed. And if my father had spent lakhs on my education only for me to fail despite it all, I do not think I would ever have been able to bear that level of guilt.