The cutthroat race for 18,000 IIT seats by 54,000 qualifiers

JEE Advanced process, issues, and quotas explained with emphasis on the cutthroat competition and changing admission parameters in IITs.

Year by year, JEE Advanced raises more questions than the scores. In 2025, 54,378 candidates cleared JEE Advanced, but with just 18,160 seats available, almost 36,000 were left stranded even after "success." Cut-off is determined through subject-wise as well as aggregate marks, then ranking all-India. But a difference between an 18,000th rank holder and a 30,000th rank holder could boil down to a few marks, highlighting just how tight the margins are.

Each year, JEE Advanced raises more questions than the outcome. In 2025, 54,378 students passed JEE Advanced, but with just 18,160 seats available, almost 36,000 were left stranded in spite of "success." It is cut-off through subject-wise and aggregate marks, topped off by an all-India ranking. But the difference between an 18,000th rank holder and a 30,000th rank holder could be a matter of a few marks, highlighting just how razor-thin the margins are.

Clearing JEE Advanced doesn’t necessarily get one a seat elsewhere, contrary to JEE Main, which directs students to NITs and state institutions. For many, it’s either a seat in an IIT, another attempt, or grudgingly settling for other options such as BITS, DTU, or private institutions.

Coming close but not making it

Seventeen-year-old Swaraj Prakhar recently cleared JEE Mains and is now preparing to reappear for the Advanced exam. "Back in my time at the peak, I used to study nearly 10 hours a day," Swaraj said. "The toughest part was the second screening test, the Advanced. I used to do a lot of rehearsing or solving JEE questions during free periods in school. Managing time was difficult, and abstaining from sports or social life was even more challenging. But that discipline enabled me to arrive here."

In spite of this, exam pressure took its toll. "I had hoped for 99 percentile, but panic resulted in idiotic errors," he explained. For Advanced, he has now turned his attention to conceptual clarity and depth of problems, along with fighting the psychological burden of performance.

Currently Swaraj holds a B.Sc. (Hons) seat at IIT Guwahati but has opted for a partial drop to reattempt JEE and BITSAT. “If not engineering, I’d consider law, but my priority is being in an environment of bright, ambitious minds. IIT is about more than academics, it’s exposure and growth,” he said.

Encouragement from teachers, friends, and relatives keeps him at ground zero. "I used to cry a lot sometimes, but I understood to accept the reality and study harder. I had a teacher say to me once, 'Everyone walks at their own pace,' and I never forgot it."

Even though he cleared JEE Advanced in 2025, 21-year-old Harshit Panda did not decide to go to an IIT. Instead, he took up B.Tech Computer Science in Delhi Technological University (DTU), over the brand value of IIT. "The fierce battle for IIT seats is largely driven by a lack of awareness and the common obsession with the IIT brand, which is pursued more for seeking parents' approval than enthusiasm.". Most students find themselves spending their most valuable years in this competition, forfeiting opportunities best suited for their abilities and development," he added.

While considering the reforms, he referred to IIT Madras' Online BSc as a model worth following. "If other IITs have similar flexible programs, particularly in software and computer science, it would enable a broader talent pool while retaining the rigor and exposure associated with IITs. That's a change that could transform IITs from being elite gatekeepers to broad-based enablers of talent," he said.

To the 36,000 aspirants who qualify through JEE Advanced every year but fail to get a seat, Harshit gives a reality check: "IIT is not a silver bullet to success—it's just a head start, and even that is subject to what you do when you're there. Institutions such as NITs and DTU provide great opportunities. With steady effort and intelligent networking, you can compete with or even beat many IIT graduates in the long run."

The rationale of the Advanced

The reasoning behind the Advanced Coach Chaitanya Rastogi puts it, "Mains shows who has studied; Advanced shows who can adapt under pressure." But as professors point out, India's concept of "merit" continues to overlook creativity, curiosity, and diversity, and the bottleneck remains.

For Chaitanya Rastogi, better known as Chaitanya Sir, who has tutored thousands of IIT and NEET candidates, the IIT selection process is not merely stringent but aimed at sifting talent in layers. "JEE Main and Advanced are two different type of exams. Mains examines basic subject knowledge, but Advanced is a second grinding; it seeks to find out how well a student can apply knowledge under immense pressure," he explained.

Almost 15 lakh students take JEE Main every year, and almost 2.2 lakh make it through to JEE Advanced. But only around 17,000 eventually reach an IIT seat. "That second sieve is required," opined Rastogi. "Mains can identify those who studied well, but Advanced can identify who can think quickly, respond to unexpected situations, and create solutions."

He identified how the exam structure itself requires something beyond memory. "Advanced papers are mixed bags, with lots of multiple-response and application-based questions. Students have to sit through two long papers in one day. That's where analytical ability, endurance, and pressure-driven decision-making get tried out."

For Rastogi, that two-stage filtering is what imbues IIT graduates with their international advantage. "IIT is not testing knowledge; it's testing speed, resilience, clear thinking, and problem-solving. That's why even overseas, IITs are valued much more than the majority of Indian institutes. The second churning guarantees only the most resilient to stay alive."

A major reason for three times the number of individuals being reported as having passed Advanced as there are seats available in IIT is the numerous admission quotas. Test creators account for it to create a much larger pool for Advanced so they can identify candidates to fill seats under the quotas.

Out of the combined 17,740 seats in 23 IITs, the General Quota takes up 40.5%, with 6,819 general vacant seats and 356 for Persons with Disabilities (PwD). The Economically Weaker Section (EWS) gets 10% of seats, including 1,694 general and 86 EWS-PwD seats. The OBC-NCL (Other Backward Classes–Non-Creamy Layer) quota takes up 27%, including 4,558 general and 231 PwD seats. In the case of the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, 15% are reserved seats that include 2,532 general and 132 PwD seats. In contrast, Scheduled Tribes (ST) candidates are allocated 7.5%, where 1,276 general and 56 PwD seats are offered.

Moreover, a horizontal reservation of 5% is also made within each category for PwD candidates. Supernumerary seats with 20% reservation for women are added to promote gender diversity. Two seats are reserved by each IIT for Defense Services candidates under preferential allotment.

Experts point out that in IIT admissions, a fraction of a mark can be the deciding factor. "Yes, even 0.1 mark matters. The same score can correspond to many different ranks," an IIT professor explained.

With lakhs of students vying for limited seats, entrance tests are not merely qualification examinations but effectively elimination exams. Since the last four years, female applicants have been made part of the joint ranking process, although supernumerary seats continue to provide greater chances to women in IITs. The dynamic system is also a mirror of the fierceness of competition as well as the attempts to create diversity at India's premier engineering schools.

Until 2020, there were different merit lists for women candidates, which enabled them to attain Computer Science in IITs with comparatively lower ranks. "Previously, girls' ranks used to be calculated separately. Until 2020, a boy would need to score in the top 100 in order to obtain Computer Science, whereas a girl could obtain the same course with a rank within 500," the professor stated.

A professor from an SSB-awarded IIT showed why pressure around admissions in JEE and IIT keeps intensifying, generating one of the world's most challenging academic bottlenecks. "The problem is not investment or infrastructure alone. We saw newer IITs of Goa, Dharwad, Jammu established over 15 years ago. But they have not yet achieved the position of the old five IITs.". This shows that it is not just about building campuses and pumping funds. What we need is a supportive environment: good labs, energetic culture, good mentorship," he said.