Telangana students miss top JEE Advanced ranks despite strong performance

Despite stellar performance in JEE Main, students failed to grab top spots in JEE Advanced. However, a record 12,946 candidates from the IIT-Hyderabad zone qualified in one of the toughest entrance examinations conducted for admissions to IITs.

Hyderabad: Despite several students from Telangana scoring a 100 percentile in the JEE Main 2025, none of them topped the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2025. This stands in sharp contrast to the usual dominance of Telangana students, who regularly secure top ranks in the JEE Advanced every year.

Last year, Hyderabad lad Bhogalapalli Sandesh aced the exam, securing the third rank. City students Vavilala Chidvilas Reddy and Polu Lakshmi Sai Lohith Reddy, secured first and second ranks in 2023 and 2022 respectively. However, this time, about 12,946 candidates from the IIT-Hyderabad zone— the highest among all zones—qualified in one of the toughest entrance exams for admission to the IITs.

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As per the results declared by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Monday, Vangala Ajay Reddy from Hyderabad, with a Common Rank List (CRL) rank of 19, emerged as the topper in the Gen-EWS category. Similarly, Dharmana Gnana Rutvik Sai from the IIT-Hyderabad zone, who secured CRL 20, topped the OBC-NCL category.

Arnav Singh (CRL 9), Vadlamudi Lokesh (10), Dharmana Gnana Rutvik Sai (18), Vangala Ajay Reddy (19), and Avanaganti Anirudh Reddy (20) figured among the top five rankers from the IIT-Hyderabad zone, which includes Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Puducherry, and Tamil Nadu. Korikana Rasagnya of the same zone was the female topper, with a CRL of 78.

Ajay Reddy said he worked day and night with the goal of studying at IIT-Bombay. “I put in 10 hours of hard work each day for the JEE Advanced. Through weekly and monthly tests, I identified my mistakes and kept improving. I scored 100 percentile in the JEE Main. I stayed away from social media and only used it during holidays or when I went home. I played sports to relieve stress,” he said.

Another student, Arnav Singh, said he began preparing for the JEE right from Class X. “I dedicated two and a half years solely to JEE preparation. I put all my focus on the JEE Advanced. I made small mistakes in the examination, but I was confident I would get a good rank,” he added.

Overall, Rajit Gupta of the IIT-Delhi zone topped the entrance examination, securing 332 out of 360 marks. Devdutta Majhi of the IIT-Kharagpur zone was the overall female topper, scoring 312 marks with a 12th rank in the CRL.

A total of 1,87,223 candidates registered, and 1,80,422 appeared for both Papers 1 and 2 in JEE Advanced 2025 held on May 18. Of these, 54,378 candidates qualified, including 9,404 females. Notably, 12,946 out of the 54,378 qualified candidates were from the IIT-Hyderabad zone, with 23 securing ranks in the top 100.