Twenty -four students got the highest national rank in the second edition of the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main for admissions to B.Tech and Bachelor of Engineering (BE) courses in engineering colleges by scoring in the 100th percentile, the National Testing Agency said on Saturday.
Seven of the toppers were from Rajasthan— the state’s Kota district has the reputation of being a hub for private institutes that coach students for such examinations. Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh had three toppers each, while West Bengal, Delhi, and Gujarat had two each and Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, one each. To be sure, some of these students also prepared for the exam in Kota . Two of the 24 toppers were girls . They also include the toppers for the categories for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and Scheduled Castes (SC).
The JEE Main 2025 were held in two sessions of paper 1 for admission to BTech and BE courses, paper 2A for Bachelor of Architecture (B Arch) and paper 2B for Bachelor of Planning (B Plan) courses, with the first session held between January 22 to 29 and the second session between April 2 and 8. A total of 14 toppers secured AIR-1 in JEE Main session 1 paper 1, and one each secured AIR-1 in paper 2A and paper 2B of JEE Main session 1. A total of 24 candidates have secured AIR-1 in JEE Main session 2 paper 1; the results for paper 2A and paper 2B are yet to be announced.
According to the NTA, 992,350 candidates, 68.7% males and 31.3% females, wrote the JEE Main Session 2 Paper 1 exam at 531 examination centres in 300 cities, including 15 outside India. Students had the option to write the exam in 13 languages.
{{/usCountry}}According to the NTA, 992,350 candidates, 68.7% males and 31.3% females, wrote the JEE Main Session 2 Paper 1 exam at 531 examination centres in 300 cities, including 15 outside India. Students had the option to write the exam in 13 languages.
{{/usCountry}}The JEE Main exam determines eligibility for participation in counselling for seats in undergraduate engineering programmes at National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), and Government-Funded Technical Institutions (GFTIs). The top 250,000 candidates in this exam qualify for the JEE Advanced exam, scheduled for May 18 this year, for admission to the 23 premier Indian Institutes of Technology.
For the general category, the cut-off percentile was 93.1023262; for OBC 79.4313582; for SC 61.1526933; and for ST 47.9026465.
While the toppers HT spoke to said they studied very hard and credited parents and teachers for their success, their preparation paths varied.
Devdutta Majhi from West Bengal, one of the two female toppers, said she studied for 10-12 hours a day. “I will study hard and sit for JEE Advanced, but I am still undecided about my course.”
Another topper, Rajit Gupta, from Kota in Rajasthan, said he used his mobile phone judiciously to watch lecture videos . “I studied as many hours as I could during my preparation without focusing on how many hours I was studying. I used a mobile phone for positive purposes to watch lecture videos,” he said.
But Omprakash Behera from Bhubaneswar, Odisha, believes a mobile phone is a distraction.
“My success mantra is to focus on what is happening instead of focusing on what has happened. I don’t have a phone because I believe it distracts me,” he said.
As in the past, the release of the results by the NTA was preceded by controversy. The final answer key for the exam was published late Thursday night but was taken down within an hour without any explanation. A revised answer key was then released around 3pm on Friday, with two questions from physics dropped.
On Saturday, NTA released a revised notice after first giving out incorrect details on the total number of male and female candidates who tookthe exam. However, educators said discrepancies remained in the data.
“NTA’s notice shows identical numbers of students appeared across different shifts, even though there was a change in schedule due to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board exam clashes. It should have resulted in uneven distribution, but it is not being reflected in their notice,” said Purnima Kaul, founder of online platform JEE One.
Earlier, candidates also complained that their JEE main session 2 response sheet displayed wrong answers and was blank for some.