ICSE achiever Spriha Biswas with her parents in Jamshedpur on Tuesday; (above) Akshay Thakur of St Xavier’s School, Ranchi, celebrates his success with his mother in Ranchi. Pictures by Bhola Prasad and Hardeep Singh

Ranchi/Jamshedpur, May 17: The capital and the steel city had 100 reasons to celebrate today with the ICSE results announcing cent per cent success. In ISC, too, the pass percentage kissed an equally outstanding 99.

While boys buoyed spirits in Ranchi, the genders complimented each other in Jamshedpur in the Class X and Class XII board exams conducted by the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). According to schools, the individual scores of both girls and boys had taken an admirable leap as well.

As many as 2,000 students from 18 schools in the capital had taken the ICSE exam.

Pradyot Prakash of St Thomas School in the capital scored 97.8 per cent to claim the ICSE crown. He was followed close on the heels by Akshay Thakur of St Xavier’s (97.6 per cent). Ananya Singh of Sacred Heart School, Hulhundu, stood third in Ranchi with 97.2 per cent. Last year, the top three slots were taken by girls.

“The score of students in capital schools has gone up compared to previous years. This is a good trend,” said Father Ajit Xess, principal, St Xavier’s. As many as 122 students had taken the exam from the school and all have cleared it with high percentage.

At St Thomas, all the 109 students secured very good marks. Principal Rev. Joseph J. Arukuzi said 41 scored more than 90 per cent.

At Bishop Westcott Girls’ School, all 156 qualified.

All 59 students of St Anthony’s who took the exam cleared it. “The results have been very good this year. The average marks have gone up,” said C.A. Francis, principal.

In ISC, two schools — St Xavier’s and Bishop Westcott Boys’ — topped the charts. All 25 commerce and 83 science students of St Xavier’s succeeded. Rishav Kothari topped in commerce with 90.5 per cent. At Bishop Westcott, all the 24 students in science cleared the test while 16 out of 22 made it from commerce.

Around 5,000 students from more than 30 schools appeared for the ICSE and ISC exams from Jamshedpur this year. Rajendra Vidyalaya and Hill Top School hogged the limelight.

Loyola School, DBMS English School and Kerala Samajam Model School also churned out an impressive merit list. Though some of the top ranks were bagged by girls, boys performed well to pull off a gender balance.

Science student Spriha Biswas of Rajendra Vidyalaya emerged as ICSE city achiever, also claimed as national topper by her school, with 98.8 per cent. “I expected a good percentage, but never thought I would be the topper. The credit goes to my parents and my teachers. The most important thing is that I never restricted myself to just academics and turned to the canvas for a break. But then, there is no substitute for hard work,” Spriha, the daughter of a Tata Steel employee who is aiming for IIT, said.

In ICSE (commerce), Archita Bhattacharjee of Kerala Samajam bagged the top score of 94.2 per cent.

Srikant Suresh of Hill Top was perched on the ISC science list with 97.5 per cent while in the commerce stream, the highest score of 95.7 per cent was secured by Shruti Narula of Carmel Junior College.

Loyola also topped in ISC arts with Mouli Chatterjee securing 95.75 per cent.