JEE Advanced 2026 sees highest number of female qualifiers in six years

The number of women qualifying for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced has crossed the 10,000 mark for the first time in six years, with 10,107 female candidates qualifying in 2026, according to data from the Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) report released by IIT Roorkee.

The figure marks the highest number of female qualifiers in the six-year period covered by the report. The qualification rate among women also increased to 23.4 per cent in 2026, compared with 21.7 per cent in 2025.

JEE Advanced is the entrance examination for undergraduate programmes at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and some other participating institutes.

More than 43,000 women registered

A total of 43,112 female candidates registered for JEE Advanced 2026. Of these, 40,562 appeared in both papers of the examination and 10,107 qualified.

The overall examination saw 1,79,694 candidates appearing in both papers, of whom 56,880 qualified. Women therefore accounted for around 17.8 per cent of all candidates who qualified.

The increase in the number of female qualifiers comes despite a slight decline in the number of women registering for the examination. In 2025, 43,413 women had registered, compared with 43,112 this year.

Female qualification rate rises

The 23.4 per cent qualification rate among women in 2026 represents an improvement over the previous year's 21.7 per cent.

The JIC data also shows differences across social categories. Among female candidates, 3,529 SC candidates, 1,682 OBC-NCL candidates, 915 GEN-EWS candidates and 1,495 ST candidates qualified when candidates with and without PwD status are combined. The official results report lists the category-wise figures separately for PwD and non-PwD candidates.

The improvement in female representation comes against the backdrop of efforts by the IIT system to increase women's participation in engineering education.

Women's representation in IIT admissions

The IITs introduced supernumerary seats for women in 2018 with the objective of increasing female representation in undergraduate programmes.

The move resulted in a gradual increase in the proportion of women among students admitted to IITs. The Indian Express has reported that women accounted for about 15.34 per cent of admitted candidates in 2018, while their share reached 20.15 per cent last year when candidates admitted through both gender-neutral and female-only seats were considered.

The latest JEE Advanced results indicate that the pool of women qualifying for IIT-level admissions has continued to expand.

Arohi Deshpande highest-ranked female candidate

Among the female candidates who qualified JEE Advanced 2026, Arohi Deshpande from the IIT Delhi zone was the highest-ranked female candidate. She secured All India Rank 77 in the Common Rank List (CRL) with 280 marks out of 360.

Overall, Shubham Kumar from the IIT Delhi zone topped the JEE Advanced 2026 CRL with 330 marks out of 360.

The increase in female qualifiers adds to the changing gender profile of India's most competitive engineering entrance examination, even as the number of women appearing for JEE Advanced remains substantially lower than the number of male candidates.