Over Ten Thousand Women Clear JEE Advanced in Record Six-Year High

More than ten thousand women candidates cleared the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced this year, marking the highest count in six years according to a report from the Joint Implementation Committee released by IIT Roorkee. A total of 43,112 female candidates registered for the exam, with 40,562 appearing for both papers and 10,107 qualifying for admission to undergraduate programmes at Indian Institutes of Technology and other participating institutes. The qualification rate among registered women grew from 21.7 per cent in 2025 to 23.4 per cent in 2026. The top female candidate secured All India Rank 77 with 280 total marks, split across 101 in mathematics, 86 in physics, and 93 in chemistry. The report noted that 3,814 female-only seats including supernumerary slots were allotted, while 37 women secured seats through the open gender-neutral pool.

Category Breakdown

The broader examination data for 2026 shows 1,87,389 registered candidates, 1,79,694 attendees for both papers, and 56,880 overall qualifiers following the May 17 test held in two sessions. General category qualifiers dropped from 16,154 students last year to 15,883, causing the qualification rate to decline from 43 per cent to 39.8 per cent. Meanwhile, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates experienced sharp jumps in qualification rates to reach 15,856 and 6,379 successful candidates respectively, compared to 12,499 and 5,008 last year. Economically Weaker Section qualifiers increased slightly from 6,291 to 6,377, whereas Other Backward Classes non-creamy layer qualifiers fell to 12,385 with a drop in qualification rate from 18.2 per cent to 17.5 per cent.

Seat Distribution

The eligibility process shortlisted candidates from JEE Main based on percentiles, resulting in 2,50,174 eligible candidates alongside foreign and OCI or PIO applicants under relaxed criteria meant to ensure twice the number of qualifiers compared to available seats per category. Among individual institutions, IIT Kharagpur allotted the highest number of seats at 1,952, followed by IIT BHU with 1,590, IIT Bombay with 1,366, IIT Roorkee with 1,357, IIT Delhi with 1,251, IIT Kanpur with 1,241, IIT Dhanbad with 1,215, and IIT Madras with 1,122.

Context

The JEE Advanced exam serves as the single gateway for admissions into the premier Indian Institutes of Technology, which use a mix of reserved quotas and supernumerary seats to encourage wider demographic participation. Annual reports from the Joint Implementation Committee provide insights into shifting success rates across different social categories and gender groups.