Till the year 2018, absolute marks out of 360 were used to determine the Rank of a candidate in the JEE Main, however, since the year 2019, the National Testing Agency (NTA) introduced the JEE percentile system, hence absolute marks are of less significance for Rank determination. In the year 2018, if a candidate scores 74 or more marks, then he/she is considered to have passed the JEE Main. Such minimum mark that is required to pass the JEE Main is called the JEE Main cut-off.

• Each year the NTA (previously CBSE) releases the cut-off for the JEE Main and it should be noted that the cut-off is different for different categories.
• It may happen that a candidate does not have his/her name in the Common Rank List but has passed the JEE Main, the Rank provided in such a scenario is the Category Rank.
• In this article, the word marks will be referred to as percentile scores unless stated otherwise.
• The cut-offs for the JEE Main for the years 2019 to 2022 are provided below (category-wise).

Cut-off for JEE Main 2022 Category-wise

The passing percentile for the JEE Main 2022 is listed below category-wise.

Cut-off for JEE Main 2021 category-wise

The passing percentile for the JEE Main 2021 is listed below category-wise.

Cut-off for JEE Main 2020 category-wise

The passing percentile for the JEE Main 2020 is listed below category-wise.

Cut-off for JEE Main 2019 category-wise

The passing percentile for the JEE Main 2019 is listed below category-wise.

Why percentile is used instead of absolute marks?

Consider the case of JEE Main 2019 when the percentile system was first introduced by the National Testing Agency, the first session started on January 8 till January 12, the Paper 1 for B.Tech started from January 9 to January 12. In the first session, a total of four days was used up for the B.Tech paper and each day there were two shifts - the day shift and the evening shift, hence 8 Paper - 1 for the first session.

Similarly, a total of 8 Paper - 1 was held for the April session.

A total of 16 Paper - 1 was conducted and each slot had a different paper and correspondingly different questions, thus the level of difficulty was also variable. Some slots had relatively easy questions while other slots claims the opposite.

Suppose Person - 1 gets an easy paper slot due to luck and Person - 2 got a tough paper, assuming that the preparation levels of both these candidates are the same and have identical abilities, it is clear that Person - 1 will score higher than Person - 2 and if we consider only absolute marks, then Person - 1 will get a higher rank and a relatively good college than Person - 2 although both have identical calibre.

Check the Difference between JEE Main and JEE Advanced Here!

This example shows the injustice done to Person - 2 and all due to his luck, regardless of his/her talent.

To stop such mishappening and to scale everyone equally, the NTA has introduced the normalisation method which operates on the principle that if the questions are easy, it is easy for all.

The normalisation is done through the percentile score, in this system, the candidate’s marks are compared to the topper of that particular slot and then scaling is done to provide a certain number to that candidate.

It is assumed that the topper of the respective slots gets 100 percentile, the scaling is done in such a way that it shows a candidate’s position with respect to the topper of that particular slot.

Therefore, in this way, justice for all the students is done.

Criteria to get a college through the JEE Main

Passing the JEE Main is an accomplishment to boast about but this alone does not guarantee your selection in reputed technical institutes, there are some extra facts that one must keep in mind before appearing for the JEE Main. The list of important criteria to get into a JEE Main accepting college are listed below.

• For B.Tech Admission: The candidate must have passed class 12 or equivalent examination with an aggregate of 75% or more (minimum 65% for SC/ST candidate).
• For B.Arch/B.Planning: The candidate must have passed class 12 or equivalent examination with a minimum aggregate of 50% from a recognised board.
• JEE Main Number of Attempts: A candidate can appear a maximum of 3 times in each consecutive year for the JEE Main. 

The institute, in particular, may have some more criteria and to know that you have to visit the official websites of these institutes. The above-mentioned points are the general criteria.

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