5 Years of IIT JEE Advanced: Toppers’ scores decline; fewer SC, more female candidates qualify

JEE Advanced Analysis: The total marks scored by the JEE Advanced 2025 topper was the lowest in three years and 23 points behind last year’s topper’s score. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, which conducted the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced, published the Joint Implementation Committee Report (JIC) 2025 this week.

The qualification rate among female candidates was the highest in five years – 21.7% of 43,413 girls to register for the IIT JEE Advanced 2025 met the cut-off marks. IIT Kanpur’s JIC report also shows that this year’s entrance test saw the highest percentage of Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) qualifying – 63.95% of 258 candidates, the highest in five years.

The percentage of candidates from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) – 18.2% – to qualify the JEE Advanced in 2025 was the highest in four years. The percentage of Scheduled-Caste students to qualify this year was 4.5 percentage points below last year’s but still nearly 10 points ahead of the figure five years ago. With Schedule Tribe students, there was barely any change. The number qualifying is linked to the number of seats earmarked for these categories in the IITs. The total number of seats has grown from 16,232 in 2021 to 18,160 in 2025, a 11.88% difference.

Women’s participation and qualifying rates have improved since the addition of the 20% supernumerary seats in 2018; OCIs and PIOs were similarly accommodated in 2022.

Careers360 analysed last five years’ qualifying scores for different categories of applicants. Ultimately, 33% of 54,378 candidates who qualified JEE Advanced 2025 secured a seat in IITs this year. The exam – also referred to as IIT JEE or IIT Entrance Exam – is for admission in undergraduate engineering programmes at 23 IITs and this year’s edition was held in May. Around 1.87 lakh registered for JEE Advanced in 2025 and 1.80 lakh appeared for the exam.

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JEE Advanced Topper: Drop in CRL 1 marks

The candidate at the top of the Common Rank List – CRL 1 – in 2025 scored lower than three of four IIT JEE toppers over the past five years. This year’s exam also saw lower scores in all three subjects in which the test is conducted – mathematics, physics and chemistry, each marked out of 120.

The table below shows the subject-wise break-up of CRL 1’s scores over five years.

JEE Adv: CRL 1’s scores by subject, over time

Source: JIC reports of different years

JEE Advanced 2025: 6,000 more qualify

This year also saw the highest number of candidates to qualify and the highest qualification rate. The number of registered candidates rose by just 639 from last year to 2025, but the number to qualify has grown by over 6,000. This roughly works out to three more candidates qualifying for every seat added between last year and this one. This year there were 1,928 more undergraduate BTech seats.

The highest number of registered candidates, however, was in 2023, according to the JIC Report 2025. The IITs allow the top 2.5 lakh rank holders in the JEE Main to write the JEE Advanced.

JEE Advanced registration, qualification rates (2021-2025)

Source: JIC reports of different years

The number of registered candidates has increased by 23.83% from 2021 to 2025 and the count of qualified candidates by 29.9%.

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IIT JEE Advanced: 46% more girls qualify

The 2025 JEE Advanced saw a higher number of girls registered for JEE Advanced 2025, with a 25.75% increase over the 2021 count. The number of girls qualifying has risen 45.76% over the same period.

Female candidates in JEE Adv over 5 years

Source: JIC reports of different years

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The number of seats earmarked for girls grew from 1,534 to 3,664 over the same period. While there were 4.2 girl candidates qualifying for every seat in 2021, now there are 2.56 for every seat. However, it is not necessary that all women candidates will go into the 20% quota.

The report also highlights that in 2025, 63.95% of OCI candidates qualified and that the number to register is roughly the same as in 2021. The data for 2022 is not available in the JIC report for that year.

JEE Advanced: OCIs qualifying

Source: JIC reports of different years

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IIT JEE: Fewer SC and more OBC, ST students qualify

While the number of OBCs registering for JEE Advanced has increased by 216.45% from 2021 to 2025, the qualifying rate has fallen by over five percentage points. That said, this year’s was the highest in four years.

OBC candidates in JEE Advanced (2021-2025)

Source: JIC reports of different years

After a sharp increase from 2022 to 2023, the number of dalit – Scheduled Caste – candidates to register for the JEE Advanced have hovered around the 31,000 mark. The number to qualify this year has fallen by 1,295 students. This group and the Scheduled Tribes are the only ones to see the number of qualifying candidates fall.

SC candidates in JEE Advanced (2021-2025)

Source: JIC reports of different years

The number and percentage of ST candidates qualifying have fallen slightly.

ST candidates in JEE Advanced (2021-2025)

Source: JIC reports of different years

Since 2021, 81.6% more ST candidates have qualified the JEE Advanced exam.