24 candidates grab All India Rank 1 in JEE Mains Session 2 exam

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) declared the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main Session 2 Paper 1 results on Saturday, with 24 candidates securing All India Rank (AIR) 1 by achieving 100 percentiles. Rajasthan led with a maximum of 7 toppers, followed by 3 each from Maharashtra, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, 2 each from West Bengal, Delhi, and Gujarat, and 1 each from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

There are two females and one each from reserved categories of Economically Weaker Section (EWS), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and Scheduled Caste (SC) among the 24 toppers.

According to a notice issued by NTA on Saturday, of the total 10,61,840 candidates registered for the JEE Main Session 2 Paper 1 exam, males accounted for 68.4% (7,26,205) and females 31.6% (3,35,635), reflecting a gender disparity in national-level engineering entrance exam conducted in the CBT (Computer-Based Test) mode in 9 shifts between April 2 and 8.

The exam conducted in 13 languages at 531 examination centres in 300 cities, including 15 cities outside India, recorded 93.4% appearance rate, with 9,92,350 candidates participating, comprising 68.7% males (6,81,871) and 31.3% females (3,10,479).

The cut-off scores for the general category stood at 93.1023262, Persons with Disability (PwD) at 0.0079349, EWS at 80.3830119, OBC at 79.4313582, SC at 61.1526933, and ST at 47.9026465, determining eligibility for JoSAA Counselling and JEE Advanced.

Candidates who qualify in the JEE Mains exam will be eligible to participate in the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) Counselling 2025, facilitating admissions to undergraduate engineering programs at National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), and Government-Funded Technical Institutions (GFTIs). The top 2.5 lakh candidates will qualify for the JEE Advanced 2025, scheduled for May 18, 2025, and conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, for admission to the 23 IITs.

Devdutta Majhi from West Bengal, who is among the 2 female candidates in the list of 24 toppers, said, “I studied for 10-12 hours a day. I took online coaching classes from FIITJE,E but mostly relied on self-studies. I will study hard and sit for JEE advanced, but I am still undecided about my course.”

Rajit Gupta, who is among the 24 toppers, said that he used his mobile phone judiciously. “The credit behind my success goes to my parents and teachers. 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.

Topper Omprakash Behera, who hails from Bhubaneswar, Odisha, believes that 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. I do self-study for about 8 to 9 hours daily. Currently, I am preparing for JEE Advanced. I want to do BTech from computer science branch of IIT Bombay,” he said.

He has been a regular classroom student at coaching centre in Kota, for three years, with his mother taking care of him in the coaching city.

Ajit Singh, father of JEE mains topper Arnav Singh, said, “The competition for such exams is so high that you have to take professional help through coaching centres to ace the exams and secure good ranks. I am happy that my son’s hard work helped him secure AIR-1. He is likely to clear JEE Advanced to secure BTech in CS from IIT Bombay.” Ajit is an IIT Delhi graduate and teaches mathematics at a coaching institute in Kota.

NTA’s flip-flops

The agency, which has been roiled by controversies around paper leaks ever since the conduct of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024, again faced complaints of errors in provisional and the final answer keys of JEE Main 2025 exam. Candidates also complained that their JEE main session 2 response sheet displayed wrong answers and was blank for some.

The NTA conducted the paper 1 exam of JEE main session 2 from April 2 to 8 and released the provisional answer key on April 11. The first final answer key was published late Thursday night but was taken down within an hour without any explanation by NTA. A revised final answer key was then released around 3 pm on Friday, with two physics questions being dropped.

On Saturday, NTA released a notice with wrong details on the total number of male and female candidates who had been given the exam, but it issued the revised notice with correct details later. However, educators still allege discrepancies in the notice.

“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. On Friday, NTA issued a notice on its website acknowledging “unavoidable reasons and technical snags” for removing the first final answer keys, but it hastily removed the statement from their website,” said Purnima Kaul, founder of online platform JEE One.