Wish to analyse your results in JEE Main 2026? Curiosity about the translation of your raw marks to percentile and rank? You’re not alone! Each year, lakhs of engineering aspirants experience this same type of curiosity immediately after the JEE Main exam.
Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main is administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA). It leads aspirants towards NITs, IIITs, and to join the IIT JEE Advanced.
In this blog, we will take you through how to analyse JEE Main 2026 score and predict rank, learn the NTA percentile system, forecast your All India Rank, and approximate which colleges you will be able to aim at depending on your projected score.
Understanding the JEE Main Scoring System
It is critical to assess how NTA marks JEE Main before determining your score. It is an essential step in JEE Main 2026 score analysis.
| Particulars | Details |
| Exam Name | JEE Main Paper 1 (B.E./B.Tech) |
| Total Questions | 90 (30 each in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics) |
| Questions to Attempt | At least 75 (25 from each subject) |
| Marking Scheme | +4 marks for every correct answer |
| Negative Marking | -1 mark for every incorrect answer |
| Unattempted Questions | 0 marks |
| Total Score Formula | (Number of correct answers × 4) – (Number of incorrect answers × 1) |
Raw Score vs. NTA Percentile: What is the Difference?
Most students also mix their raw score and their NTA percentile. Let us clarify the difference:
| Term | Meaning |
| Raw Score | The marks you actually scored in the exam. |
| NTA Percentile | Your performance compared to other test-takers, normalised across shifts. |
Because JEE Main is conducted in different shifts with different difficulty percentile normalisation creates fairness. This implies that your percentile is concerned with the number of people who got lower marks than you and not the actual percentage of marks.
How NTA Calculates Your Percentile
Percentile rating is not equal to marks out of 100. It is computed by using the formula:
| Percentile: Number of candidates who scored equal to or below your score/Total number of candidates × 100 |
Key Tips:
- The percentiles are computed on an individual session basis.
- Once all the sessions are complete, normalisation is applied to find out the final percentile in order to eliminate changes in difficulty.
Students can also use the JEE Main 2026 percentile calculator or refer to the official process of how NTA calculates JEE Main percentile for better clarity.
JEE Main 2026 Expected Normalisation Process
The normalisation formula of NTA makes scores in different sessions the same.
The formula is as follows:
| Normalised Percentile (100 × Number of candidates in a session with raw score ≤ your score) / Total candidates in that session |
The key steps in the normalisation process include:
- Session-wise percentile calculation
- Subject-wise percentile calculation
- Combining percentiles across sessions
- The final merit list should be prepared on the basis of the normalised percentile.
This system is fair even in those cases when one session was a bit harder or easier than the other, as explained through NTA percentile calculation JEE Main 2026.
How to Predict Your JEE Main Rank from Percentile
Once you have got your NTA percentile, it can be approximated that your All India Rank (AIR) will be as follows:
Rank = 100 − Percentile / 100 × Total Candidates
Let us take a sample of 12 lakh candidates that will appear in JEE Main 2026.
| Percentile | Predicted AIR |
| 99.9 | ~1,200 |
| 99.5 | ~6,000 |
| 98 | ~24,000 |
| 95 | ~60,000 |
| 90 | ~1,20,000 |
| 80 | ~2,40,000 |
| 70 | ~3,60,000 |
| 60 | ~4,80,000 |
Note: Remember, this is an estimate.
You can also use a JEE Main 2026 rank predictor for better estimation.
JEE Main 2026 Score vs. Rank Analysis (Expected Data)
Based on 2024 & 2025 trends, here is an expected JEE Main marks vs percentile 2026 and JEE Main score vs rank 2026 chart for JEE Main 2026:
| Marks (Out of 300) | Expected Percentile | Predicted Rank Range |
| 280 – 300 | 99.99+ | 1 – 100 |
| 250 – 279 | 99.90 – 99.95 | 100 – 1,000 |
| 200 – 249 | 99.00 – 99.80 | 1,000 – 10,000 |
| 150 – 199 | 98.00 – 99.00 | 10,000 – 25,000 |
| 120 – 149 | 95.00 – 98.00 | 25,000 – 50,000 |
| 90 – 119 | 90.00 – 95.00 | 50,000 – 1,00,000 |
| 60 – 89 | 80.00 – 90.00 | 1,00,000 – 2,00,000 |
| 30 – 59 | 60.00 – 80.00 | 2,00,000 – 4,00,000 |
| Below 30 | Below 60 | 4,00,000+ |
This data helps with JEE Main 2026 expected rank vs marks and JEE Main 2026 percentile vs rank chart comparisons.
How to Use Score Analysis for College Prediction?
After knowing your predicted rank, you can have an idea of which NITs, IIITs, and GFTIs you could be offered depending on the cutoffs in a previous year.
| Predicted Rank | College Type You Can Target |
| 1 – 2,000 | Top NITs like NIT Trichy, NIT Surathkal, IIIT Hyderabad |
| 2,000 – 10,000 | NIT Warangal, DTU, IIIT Delhi, NIT Rourkela |
| 10,000 – 25,000 | NIT Kurukshetra, NIT Silchar, IIIT Allahabad |
| 25,000 – 50,000 | IIIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Agartala, state-level GFTIs |
| 50,000 – 1,00,000 | Emerging IIITs, lower-ranked NITs |
| 1,00,000+ | State engineering colleges through JoSAA or CSAB rounds |
For aspirants looking beyond ranks, tools like the JEE Main 2026 college predictor can help you shortlist institutes based on previous cutoffs and your projected performance.
Conclusion
Check your JEE Main 2026 result to plan your next step. You can prepare for JEE Advanced or aim for top NITs and IIITs. Percentile and rank are only estimates. Focus on improving. Your score is just one step forward.
FAQs
Q1: How many students can we expect this year to apply for JEE Main 2026?
Answer: You can roughly expect a number between 12-13 lakhs.
Q2: Is 150 a good score in JEE Main 2026?
Answer: Yes, 150 is sufficient to get you in the mid-range of NITs.
Q3: Does the percentile depend on shift difficulty?
Answer: Yes. That is why NTA uses the normalisation process. It ensures fairness across sessions, which is an important part of how to calculate JEE Main percentile 2026 and the broader JEE Main 2026 result analysis.
