My plan B list, written in my third year (so you can write yours in your first)
Not a consolation prize. A list I wish somebody had made me write before results, not after.
Rahul DubeyDropper Sample
27 Sept 2026 · 4 min read
Photo: Abdel-Moneim Mustafa · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
I'm writing this at 6 am because this is the only hour the lane outside my room is quiet. Chai is cold. Third attempt. Let me tell you what I should have done in the first one.
My plan B in the first attempt was one sentence: agar nahi hua toh dekhenge. We'll see. That sentence is a trap. When the result came, I did not "see" anything for about two weeks. I lay on the bed, my phone showed me other people's ranks, my uncle arrived with a list of what his friend's son did (all of it was about his friend's son and none of it was about me). The second attempt, same story, same sentence.
This year I wrote the list in April, months before the exam, when my head was calm. Reason: decisions after the result are made inside grief, and counselling deadlines are not patient. If you've never opened a counselling schedule, it is a dull page full of dates that do not care about your feelings.
How I made the list
For every option I wrote down four things:
- How do I even get in? Which exam, which counselling, which year's rules.
- What does a normal day look like in that job or course?
- What do I like about it (honestly, not as a defence)?
- What worries me?
Here's a cleaned-up version of my table. I'm leaving out seat numbers and cutoffs on purpose. They change every year and I'd be guessing, and a wrong number on the internet is worse than no number.
| Option | Route (check current rules) | What I like | What worries me |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental (BDS) | Same exam, same counselling | Still a clinician, can run my own practice | Private fees can be steep, city markets are crowded |
| Veterinary | Also through the same exam | I like animals, work in smaller towns also | Fieldwork, fewer seats |
| Nursing / allied health (physio, lab tech, radiography, optometry) | Mix of state entrance and merit, varies a lot | Hospitals are always hiring, real skills | Pay ladder is slow, I'd have to check each course's recognition |
| B.Pharm | Entrance or merit, varies by state | Pharma, quality control, research | Crowded market |
| BSc life sciences / biotech / microbiology | University entrance or college merit | I love biology itself. Master's, then research | Long path, early money is small |
| Psychology | University entrance or college merit | Zoya's posts convinced me this is real work | Need a master's to practise, so five years minimum |
| AYUSH courses | Same exam, separate counselling | A real course with real patients | I'd need to actually believe in the system, and I don't know enough yet. This one is a "go and talk to students there" item |
You can see not every row excites me. That's the point. A plan B list where every row is exciting is a lie.
The rules I made for the list
The Tuesday test. Could I live a random Tuesday of this life without hating it? Not the graduation photo. A Tuesday. Wet shoes, a boring lecture, a patient who does not listen to you.
A date. I wrote a date. If my mock average on two consecutive tests in February is below a number I picked in advance (and showed to my sister so I can't cheat), I start the paperwork for plan B. Not later. The date is not for giving up. It is for stopping me from "one more month" until it's June.
One person knows. My sister. If nobody knows the list exists, it's just a thought and thoughts disappear at 2 am.
Another attempt is allowed on the list, but with conditions. I'm in my third year, so I'd be a hypocrite if I said a fourth is impossible. But a fourth needs a reason that is not "I'm already here." Sunk cost has eaten more years of people than any exam.
About the shame
I carried this for years. Plan B felt like betraying the dream. Like if I wrote it down the universe would hear and say "oh, he doesn't believe in himself, let's give him plan B."
That's not how anything works. You do not buy house insurance because you expect the house to burn. You buy it so you can sleep. The list let me sleep. Some nights in the second year I would have given anything for it.
I haven't picked anything. I'm still preparing, properly, and I think I have my best shot ever. But on the bad days I open the list and read it, and the floor stops moving for a bit.
Write yours. Do it in a calm month. Put a date on it.
12 responses
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[+][–]Nisha Verma12thSample· 23d ago
"agar nahi hua toh dekhenge" is basically the national motto at this point. Also respect for showing the date to your sister, my sister would use it as blackmail 😅 how did you decide the mock-average number? Like what's the logic?
[+][–]Rahul DubeyDropperSample· 23d agoAuthor
I looked at the last two years' cutoffs for the kind of seat I'd be happy with, added a cushion, and picked the mock average that matches it roughly. Not scientific. Mock scores are noisy, which is why I need it on two tests in a row, so one bad Sunday doesn't trigger it.
[+][–]Ananya Reddy11thSample· 23d ago
I'm in class 11, is it too early to make a plan B? Or is it bad luck to even write it? I feel guilty just thinking about it. Also should I be making the same table for JEE-type options even though I'm PCB?
[+][–]Kavya NaikDropperSample· 22d ago
Not bad luck, it's just maths. I wrote mine after my result and it was the worst possible time, I was crying on the table while writing it. Make it now, in a normal month, and then forget about it for a year. Doesn't have to be JEE-type options, keep it to what you'd genuinely do. Also ananya, don't colour code it. You will spend three days on the colours 😄
[+][–]Harsh Gupta12thSample· 22d ago
wait vet is through CUET na? or a separate exam?
[+][–]Ishita GoyalDropperSample· 22d ago
BVSc is also through NEET, the same exam, though how the seats are split and the rules can change so check the notice every year. Don't take it from a comment, even mine. Same for nursing and allied health, those vary so much by state that I'd check each college's page.
[+][–]Harsh Gupta12thSample· 22d ago
oh. my cousin's dog is going to be so disappointed it's not a separate entrance. will check the notice, thanks
[+][–]Diya Menon11thSample· 22d ago
omg the BSc life sciences row, I feel personally attacked in a good way 😭 can you explain more about the research path? Like what does the 5 years look like, is it BSc → MSc → PhD? I always thought "biotech" was a dead-end career people told you about when you didn't get medicine.
[+][–]Rahul DubeyDropperSample· 22d agoAuthor
It's not a dead end but it's slow, and I'd rather be honest than sell it. BSc is three years, a master's is two, and a PhD is another few after that. In the first years the pay is small and some of it is stipend-based. If you love the actual lab work or fieldwork it's a life. If you're doing it only because "doctor failed" it will feel like a punishment. That's why it's in the table as a row I like, not a row I'm settling for.
[+][–]Zoya Khan12thSample· 22d ago
What struck me most is the part about shame. I have seen friends refuse to even look at alternatives because looking felt like admitting defeat, and then when the result came they had to decide in forty-eight hours with no information, which is how people end up in a course they chose out of panic. A plan B written in a calm month is not a lack of belief. It is the thing that lets you keep believing without being terrified every day. Thank you for putting a date on it too, because a plan without a date is just a wish with a good vocabulary.
[+][–]Siddharth RaoDropperSample· 22d ago
The Tuesday test is going straight into my notes. I did the graduation-photo version of every option last year. All of them looked amazing in the photo.
[+][–]Mehak AroraDropperSample· 21d ago
needed this 🥲
