Rajasthan Tops, Telangana Rises as 13.55 Lakh Aspirants Battle for IIT-NIT Seats, ETEducation

With 13.55 lakh candidates appearing in the January session, among the highest ever, the results reveal not just toppers, but a deeper story of aspiration, migration and an expanding yet intensely competitive engineering admissions pipeline.

When the National Testing Agency declared the JEE Main 2026 Session 1 results, the familiar wave of celebration and anxiety swept across the country. Yet beneath the topper headlines lay a more layered narrative, of rising participation, regional coaching ecosystems shaping merit lists, and a selection funnel that continues to narrow even as institutional capacity expands.

Of the 13,55,293 candidates registered, 13,04,653 appeared, translating to an attendance rate of 96.26%, among the highest ever recorded for a January session. Twelve students secured a perfect 100 percentile, reaffirming the exam’s status as one of India’s most competitive academic gateways.

The perfect twelve

In an exam where even a single misread question can cost hundreds of ranks, twelve candidates emerged untouched. Notably, all twelve are male, a gender imbalance that has persisted in JEE topper lists despite rising female participation.

Source: NTA topper list, February 2026. 100 NTA score (percentile), as ranks will be finalised after JEE Main Session 2.

Among female candidates, Ashi Grewal from Haryana emerged as the top scorer with 99.9969766 percentile, a figure that in most years would dominate headlines, but in 2026 became a quieter footnote to the perfect-score narrative.

The Kota effect

Rajasthan’s continued dominance, three of the twelve perfect scorers is closely tied to the long-evolved coaching ecosystem centred in Kota. For decades, the city has functioned less as a regional hub and more as a national aggregation point for engineering aspirants.

Each year, an estimated 1.5–2 lakh students migrate to Kota to enrol in coaching institutes such as ALLEN Career Institute, Resonance, Vibrant Academy, and Motion. Many of them simultaneously enrol in local schools, often through integrated or “dummy” schooling arrangements, which makes them eligible to be counted under Rajasthan in state-wise data.

This structural quirk means Rajasthan’s topper presence often reflects not just the state’s schooling strength but the broader health of India’s coaching migration economy. A student originally from Bihar, Delhi, or Telangana but completing Class 12 in Kota effectively appears in Rajasthan’s state merit list.

Thus, Rajasthan’s recurring prominence is best understood as the institutionalisation of coaching-led academic mobility, rather than purely regional academic dominance.

Southern consistency: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh hold ground

While Rajasthan retained the summit, the Telugu states once again signalled their entrenched position in the national merit landscape. Telangana’s Vivan Sharad Maheshwari secured a perfect 100 percentile, while Andhra Pradesh contributed two candidates to the perfect-score list, including Pasala Mohith with a flawless 100 percentile.

Together, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana accounted for three of the twelve top scorers, reinforcing a decade-long pattern of consistent high performance from the region. Unlike the Kota phenomenon, many toppers from these states are prepared within regional institutional ecosystems, including large residential coaching networks such as Sri Chaitanya Educational Institutions and Narayana.

The distinction is subtle but significant: while Rajasthan’s list often represents migrating aspirants, the Telugu states’ toppers frequently reflect strong localised academic pipelines.

Participation surge: a five-year climb

Beyond the topper geography, the more consequential story lies in the scale of participation itself. JEE Main has witnessed a sharp surge in registrations over the past five years, reflecting the expanding base of engineering aspirants in India’s youth demographic.

The trajectory suggests that engineering, particularly in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and data science, continues to retain its aspirational pull across socio-economic segments and geographies.

Capacity has grown, but competition has grown faster

Even as candidate numbers have surged, India’s premier engineering institutions have expanded their undergraduate intake over the past decade through new campuses, infrastructure upgrades, and supernumerary seat additions.

The undergraduate seat pool across the Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology has nearly doubled since the mid-2010s.

(approximate seat expansion based on official intake trends)

The expansion has widened access, yet the growth in aspirants has outpaced seat increases, ensuring that the admission funnel remains sharply competitive.

The numbers behind the cohort

A demographic snapshot of the 2026 Session 1 cohort reflects the persistent gender participation gap in engineering entrance examinations.

Attendance rates across genders were broadly similar, but the absolute participation disparity continues to shape the composition of the top percentile bands.

The NTA also dropped nine questions, seven from Physics and one each from Mathematics and Chemistry, following technical review. Additionally, results of 68 candidates were withheld due to unfair means or identity verification discrepancies.

A narrowing funnel

As the denominator grows, the selection funnel inevitably tightens. Eligibility for JEE Advanced remains capped at roughly 2.5 lakh candidates, which means percentile thresholds required for qualification have steadily risen over the years.

The result is a paradoxical landscape: expanded institutional capacity, but an even faster rise in aspirants, producing a system that is simultaneously more accessible and more competitive than a decade ago.

What comes next

With Session 1 concluded, attention shifts to Session 2 scheduled in April, after which final All India Ranks will be declared based on the best of two attempts. These ranks will determine admissions to NITs, IIITs, and other centrally funded technical institutions through the JoSAA counselling process, while the top qualifiers will move on to JEE Advanced in May.

For the vast majority of candidates clustered between 95 and 99.9 percentile, the coming weeks will involve a careful strategic decision: attempt Session 2 for incremental gains or pivot fully towards the advanced-stage examination.

Key facts — JEE Main 2026 Session 1