A Decade of JEE Advanced Toppers: How Scores and Ranks Have Shifted Since 2016

Over one million students take the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced every year, but only a fraction secure admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology. In 2026, a total of 1,79,694 candidates appeared in both papers and 56,880 qualified for the merit list.

2026 Toppers and Past Trends

Shubham Kumar from Gaya, Bihar, secured All India Rank 1 in 2026 by scoring 330 out of 360 marks. Kumar had previously scored a hundredth percentile in JEE Main, where he ranked sixth nationally, and hopes to join IIT Bombay for Computer Science. He finished just one mark ahead of Kabeer Chhillar, who took AIR 2 with 329 marks. Chhillar also achieved a perfect percentile in JEE Main and had prepared alongside Kumar as a hostel-mate in Kota. Over the past decade, top scores have shifted significantly across different exam formats. Aman Bansal topped the 2016 edition with 320 out of 372 marks, while Ved Lahoti set a record in 2024 with 355 out of 360 marks from the IIT Delhi zone. Other notable toppers include Chirag Falor in 2020, who scored 352 out of 396 before choosing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over the IITs, and Mridul Agarwal, who scored 348 out of 360 in 2021.

Context

The Joint Entrance Examination Advanced serves as the sole gateway for admission to undergraduate engineering and science programmes across the premier Indian Institutes of Technology. The exam format, total marks, and difficulty levels frequently change from year to year, which explains why top scores fluctuate across different editions.