NEW DELHI: IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IIT Madras continued to dominate the choices of the country’s top JEE-Advanced rankers in 2026, with 97 of the top 100 rankers allotted seats at these three institutes. IIT Bombay alone accounted for 68 of the top 100, while IIT Delhi and IIT Madras took the remaining 29.Among the top 25 rankers, eight each took admission in IIT Delhi and IIT Madras, while six joined IIT Bombay.A total of 18,861 admissions were made across IITs, with women accounting for 3,814, or about 20.2%, according to the Joint Implementation Committee report prepared by IIT Roorkee. This was only a marginal increase from 20.15% the previous year.
Women’s success rate hits record high
Women’s success rate in JEE-Advanced reached a record high in 2026 despite a decline in registrations. Of the 43,112 women registered, 10,107 qualified, taking their success rate to 23.4%, compared with 21.7% in 2025.Last year, 9,404 women had qualified from 43,413 registrations. Among women who appeared in both papers this year, the success rate was higher at 24.9%.However, women continued to account for a smaller share of qualifiers than their share of registrations. They made up 23% of registrations but only 17.8% of qualifiers.The number of women receiving IIT seat allotments rose from 3,664 in 2025 to 3,814 in 2026, an increase of about 4%. Of this year’s allotments, 3,777 were in seats set aside exclusively for women and 37 were in seats open to all genders.IITs have been adding women-only seats to ensure that women account for at least one-fifth of new undergraduate students. Women are considered first for these seats within their respective categories.
SC, ST qualification rises sharply
The report also shows a significant increase in the number of SC and ST candidates qualifying for JEE-Advanced.The number of SC qualifiers rose from 12,528 to 15,856, while the number of ST qualifiers increased from 5,017 to 6,379. Both rose by around 27%, much faster than the overall 4.6% increase in qualifiers, from 54,378 to 56,880.Including candidates with disabilities in both years, the qualification rate among registered candidates increased by 9.9 percentage points for SC candidates to 50.2%, and by 8.3 percentage points for ST can
