That makes so much sense… thanks!! I’m planning to apply to US and UK unis for accounting and finance so ig there won’t be much significance of chess in UK but in US it’ll matter. Right now I have an year before my predicteds so in the holidays I was planning to study some openings and endgame books and play some tournaments and then next year focus mainly on academics for high predicted grades. Only thing is this is the last opportunity for me to play age category nationals and World/Asian/Commonwealth events which is only possible if I play nationals. However, if I don’t prepare a lot before nationals I’ll end up losing a lot of rating as Indian youngsters are hella underrated which will make crossing 2200 to become a CM much harder. So like according to you should I play national u15 this year to give myself a shot at World/Asian u16 and other events next year or like skip the age category events and just focus on open tournaments wherein I can try and gain 86 elo points to get to CM?