As many as 195,870 candidates appeared at the senior secondary examination. Candidates can check their results on websites: www.nos.org , www.nios.ac.in and www.indiaresults.com . The results for Class X will be declared on Thursday.

The examination was conducted in two stages and the final was held on May 5 this year.

Based on the marks scored by the candidates in the final examination, 1776 candidates, out of which 1389 are general, 268 SC and 119 ST, have been placed on the merit list and 1642 candidates are on the wait list.

The first round of counselling would begin from June 13 for which the successful candidates will have to appear personally or through video conferencing at CBSE centres in New Delhi, Kolkata and Puducherry.

However, the students, who did not give any option of counselling venue, will have to appear at the New Delhi centre only.

The appointment of the successful candidates has been recommended for Civil Engineering Group, Mechanical Engineering Group, Electrical Engineering Group and the Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering Group.

Among the successful candidates 139 are from the General category, 89 from Other Backward Classes, 52 from Scheduled Castes and 24 from Scheduled Tribes.

The results were made available at www.cbse.nic.in and www.aieee.nic.in .

Around nine lakh candidates appeared for the examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education at 1,299 centres this year.

Information regarding central counselling for candidates will be displayed by the Central Counselling Board on www.ccb.nic.in.

Girls outshone boys yet again in the examinations with an impressive pass percentage of 87.96 per cent. Boys' pass

percentage was 86.46 per cent.

Out of the six exam regions, Chennai topped the list of pass percentage with 95.26 per cent followed by Ajmer (94.22 per cent), Allahabad (89.10), Panchkula (89.07), Delhi (82.87) and Guwahati (57.29).

A total of 7,65,095 candidates, including 4,49,742 boys, had registered for the exam held in March this year.

The results is available on the CBSE website, www.cbse.nic.in and www.cbse.results.nic.in.

The results will also be available on the telephone, through the Interactive Voice Response System. For Delhi, call 24357270 and for NCR call 95-11-24357270. On MTNL lines, for Delhi call 28127030, for NCR call 95-11-28127030. Airtel subscribers can call 54321202. To receive results by SMS, send `cbse10 rollno' to 52001 on MTNL, 56735 on Vodafone, 54321202 on Airtel, 55456068 on IDEA, 51234 /53030 on Reliance, 582821 on Tata Indicom, 51012 on Spice Communication, and 57766 on BSNL lines.

For the Chennai regional office of the CBSE, results shall be declared on May 27 at 5 pm.

For Pankaj, the son of a DTC employee, his school is the best and he does not regret not having gone to a public school. Besides his family, Pankaj thanks his teachers for guiding him. The Rajakiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalayas are the state's answer to training the talented among economically weaker sections and Pankaj's scores-- Maths (99), Physics (99), Chemistry (98), Computer Science (93) and English (90)-- more than reiterate that.

With assembly elections approaching soon, the Congress-led Delhi government was quick to appropriate credit for the the class XII CBSE results. Chief minister Sheila Dikshit the highlighted this year's achievements with education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely by her side.

The pass percentage has increased by almost three percent since last year in Delhi government schools. The chief minister noted that a decade back, the pass percentage of Delhi government schools was around a mere 39 per cent. ``Nine years ago it was a stigma to send a child to a government school. Even small public schools were preferred over the state-run schools. However, the government's efforts in the last decade has reversed this trend,'' Dikshit asserted.

Dwelling on the steps taken by the education department over the last few years, Lovely said, ``The workshops in collaboration with SCERT to make our teachers more efficient and in tune with the children have paid off. Moreover, the strict monitoring mechanism and internal assessments have worked well.''

Soon after the result was declared at 8 am, scores of students and their parents in the national capital were seen queuing up in front of internet cafes and using phones to get the results.

This year, over 548,000 students appeared for the Class 12 board exams both in India and abroad. In Delhi alone, 160,414 students had appeared for the exams.

According to CBSE sources, results for class X may be out in the beginning of the next week. Students can register on www.cbse.nic.in to get their result through e-mail or check the result on this website after 8 am on the result day.

Results can also be accessed on

• www.cbseresults.nic.in,
  
• www.results.nic .in,
  
• http/mtnldelhi.in ,
  
• httpbol.net.in,
  
• http/delhi.mtnl.in.

Once the class XII results are out, students seeking a seat in Delhi University can start filling and submitting the admission forms from June 2. The forms can be submitted till June 15. The aggregate in class XII will decide the future of DU aspirants when the first cut-off list is out on June 26.

Meanwhile, students suffering from anxiety while waiting for their Board results now have help at hand in the form of helplines:

That's when the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and the Indian School Certificate (ISC) results will be declared.

Unnati of Shri Ram School in Gurgaon can hardly take her eyes off the ICSE website. It's the biggest exam result of her life and the Class X post-exam relief is long over.

''I am really tense since morning, when I saw on the website that results will be declared on Tuesday. My Mathematics and Chemistry papers were really good and I am expecting around 85 per cent,'' said Unnattee Eusibius, Class X student, Shri Ram School.

Reviewing and revisiting each exam, what will definitely raise scores, answers that students wish they could correct now, that's what the next few hours will be about.

Class XII results will decide career goals and direction. For Unnati and her friends, it is what others will think and say.

''We have got provisional admission in our own school, so we are worried about the expectations our parents have from us,'' said Sejal Widge, Class X student, Shri Ram School.

''But we also have lot of peer pressure. Which friend scores how much, really matters a lot. So we are a bit worried about that,'' said Rifka Verma, Class X student, Shri Ram School.

But their parents have also urged them to remember this is not the end of the world. And that's what they wish to convey to others like them.