A marginal dip in pass percentage from last year, 40,712 out of 155,538 candidates cleared the 2022 JEE-Advanced – the entrance test for admissions to undergraduate programmes in the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology across the country – the results of which were announced on Sunday.


The 2022 pass percentage stood at 26.17 per cent, compared to 29.54 per cent in 2021. The qualifying marks were also lowered as compared to 2021 to get a pool of qualified candidates at least twice the number of total seats on offer.

A perusal of past JEE-Advanced reports shows that the qualifying marks were the lowest at least since 2012. In 2020 and 2021, the cut-off for the Common Rank List or CRL was 5 per cent in each subject and 17.5 per cent aggregate. This time, a candidate had to score 4.40 per cent in each subject – Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics – and 15.28 per cent overall.

Candidates have to satisfy both subject-wise and aggregate qualifying marks to be included in the rank list.

In 2019, the qualifying cut-off marks were even higher at 10 per cent in each subject and 25 per cent overall. The dip in cut-offs in a given year is usually attributed to tougher questions papers.

To be sure, the qualifying JEE-Main score for general category candidates to appear in the JEE-Advanced was 88.4 this time, slightly higher than in 2021 when it was 87.9. However, for the reserved category candidates, the cut-offs were at a four-year low at 43.08 for SCs and 26.7 for STs, according to IIT Bombay, which organised the entrance.

Agreeing that there is a drop in the cut-offs, Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director of IIT Bombay, said, “There is always a fluctuation in cut-off. In fact, there is a reason to rejoice this year that students’ fighting spirit has gone up. For a large part of the past two years, they have been confined to home due to Covid-19 pandemic. Despite all the pandemic challenges and a tough exam; the overall performance has not gone down. The difference in cut-off is less than two marks, which is statistically insignificant and will not impact admissions.”