NEW DELHI: Computer Science Engineering (CSE) continued to be the first choice of top rankers in the IIT entrance JEE-Advanced in 2026 with 365 out of the top 500 rank holders opting for the course, while IIT Bombay remained the top choice with 183 candidates out of the same pool, according to official data.
The Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) report for 2026 by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, which conducted the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced this year, noted that at least 183 out of the top 500 rank holders in IIT entrance JEE-Advanced secured admission in IIT Bombay while 115 took admission in IIT Delhi.
The trends are on similar lines as seen in the past few years.
Seventy-eight candidates from the top 500 pool went to IIT Madras, while the number of such candidates who took admission in IIT Kanpur and Kharagpur was 49 and 40, respectively.
Among the top 100 who secured IIT seats, 68 went to IIT Bombay, 18 to IIT Delhi, 11 to IIT Madras and one to IIT Kanpur.
CSE remained the first choice of branch among the top rankers with 365 of the top 500 rankers choosing the course. IIT Bombay alone accounted for 142 of these.
Only two of the top 500 chose Civil Engineering, while none opted for Aerospace Engineering.
Only 17 candidates out of the top 500 rank holders chose AI and Data Analytics programmes.
The top 2.5 lakh candidates in JEE (Main) are eligible to appear for JEE (Advanced).
In JEE (Advanced) 2026, held on May 17, 1,79,694 candidates appeared in both papers 1 and 2.
The result was declared on June 1, with 56,880 candidates qualifying.
Compiled annually by the organising IIT, the JIC report provides critical transparency regarding seating matrices, branch allocation shifts and statistical summaries of student performances.
The report noted that women candidates achieved the highest success rate in the IIT JEE-Advanced entrance exam in 2026, with the number of qualifying candidates crossing the 10,000 mark for the first time in the last six years.
"The qualifying criteria were relaxed to ensure at least twice the number of candidates qualify as compared to available seats in each category," the report said.