JEE Advanced 2026: Women cross 10,000 qualifiers for first time in six years
The Joint Implementation Committee report said women posted their highest JEE Advanced qualification rate in 2026, with 10,107 qualifying. The data also showed strong gains for SC and ST candidates, while general and OBC-NCL rates slipped.
- Oct 05, 2026,
- Updated Oct 05, 2026, 2:32 PM IST
Women recorded their highest qualification rate in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced in 2026, with the number of successful candidates crossing 10,000 for the first time in six years, according to the official report.
The Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) report, prepared by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, which conducted JEE Advanced this year, said the qualification rate among registered women candidates rose to 23.4 per cent in 2026 from 21.7 per cent in 2025.
Of the 43,112 women who registered for the examination, 40,562 appeared in both papers and 10,107 qualified. This means nearly one in four registered women candidates cleared the examination, compared with about one in five last year.
The report said 3,814 female-only seats, including female supernumerary seats, were allotted in 2026. Another 37 female candidates secured seats through the gender-neutral pool.
The examination also recorded a significant rise in the number of candidates qualifying from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories. SC qualifiers increased from 12,499 in 2025 to 15,856 this year, while ST qualifiers rose from 5,008 to 6,379.
The qualification rates for SC and ST candidates increased by 9.8 and 8.1 percentage points, respectively, compared with last year.
Among general category candidates, however, the number of qualifiers declined marginally from 16,154 in 2025 to 15,883 in 2026. The qualification rate fell from 43 per cent to 39.8 per cent.
The number of Economically Weaker Section (EWS) qualifiers increased from 6,291 to 6,377. For Other Backward Classes-NCL (OBC-NCL), the qualification rate dropped from 18.2 per cent to 17.5 per cent, with the number of qualifiers falling from 12,606 to 12,385.
The top 2.5 lakh candidates from JEE Main are eligible to appear for JEE Advanced. This year, 1,79,694 candidates appeared in both papers of the examination, which was held on May 17. The results were announced on June 1, with 56,880 candidates qualifying.
The JIC report said qualifying criteria were relaxed to ensure that at least twice the number of candidates as the available seats in each category qualified for the next stage.
Compiled annually by the IIT conducting the examination, the JIC report provides data on candidate performance, seat allocation and changes in the admission process.
JEE Advanced 2026 ranks will also be used for undergraduate admissions at institutions outside the IIT system, including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, IIM Lucknow, the Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology and the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology.