Only 33% of JEE Advanced 2025 qualifiers secure IIT seats despite allotment exceeding sanctioned intake

Just 33% of the 54,378 candidates who qualified JEE Advanced 2025 secured a seat in IITs this year. According to IIT Kanpur’s Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) report, 18,188 seats were allotted — exceeding the sanctioned IIT intake of 18,160.

IIT Kanpur was responsible for organising the Joint Entrance Examination -Advanced (JEE Advanced 2025) for 2,50,243 top rank holders of JEE Mains 2025.

Among the top 2.5 lakh, around 1.87 lakh candidates registered for the IIT JEE Advanced exam and 1.80 lakh appeared. Of which, 54,378 qualified the exam – about 30% of the total appeared – and became eligible for Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) counselling.

Allotted seats exceed sanctioned IIT intake

The total seat capacity for 23 IITs in 2025 was 18,160, including 3,632 female-only (supernumerary) seats.

However, “18,188 seats were allotted, including 9 supernumerary DS seats, 11 supernumerary foreign nationals/ OCI/ PIO (F) seats, and 12 supernumerary MinCutOff seats. Additionally, 96 OCI/PIO (I) candidates (treated as Indian nationals) secured admission”, the report read.

Meaning, although the sanctioned total intake at IITs was 18,160 seats, the final allotment rose to 18,188. Despite the increase, only 33% of the qualified candidates were able to secure a seat in IITs. In short, only 1 in 3 got admission in IITs this year.

Number of qualifiers, seats increase

In the last three years, the number of qualifiers has increased by nearly 14,000 and the number of seats in IITs by around 1,500.

The remaining candidates were allotted seats in other participating colleges. The JoSAA counselling 2025 is not only conducted for IIT admission but also for 31 National Institutes of Technology (NITs), IIEST Shibpur, 26 IIITs and 40 Other-Government Funded Technical Institutes (Other-GFTIs).

Additionally, the IIT Kanpur report also mentioned that four cases were filed in the Supreme Court and 22 cases in various high courts in connection with JEE Advanced and JoSAA 2025.

Lowest score in JEE Advanced 2025 was just 3 marks

IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay zones had the majority of students in the top 100, followed by IIT Hyderabad. As per the JEE Advanced toppers list 2025, AIR 1 Rajit Gupta from IIT Delhi zone obtained 332 out of the total 360 marks and top female candidate, Devdutta Majhi from IIT Kharagpur zone scored 312 marks and secured AIR 16.

The JEE Advanced results 2025 also showed a sharp difference between first and the last rank holders across categories. While the top rank holder in the general category had scored above 92%, toppers from OBC, EWS, SC, ST had a score ranging between 80-86%.

In stark contrast, the last rank holders in all categories barely touched 10-20% of total marks; lowest marks of 3 and 4 were recorded in mathematics. This reflects the continuing popularity of IITs and wide performance gap within each category.