The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the results of the Joint Entrance Exam Main 2026 (JEE Main 2026 results) today, February 16 at jeemain.nta.nic.in.
As the results were declared through percentiles, students are often left confused about how their performance is assessed. A candidate’s raw marks are calculated based on the number of correct answers minus negative marking for incorrect responses (correct answers – negative marks for incorrect answers). But these marks are not directly used to determine a candidate’s rank.
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Instead, the NTA converts raw marks into percentile scores using a process called normalisation. This process is necessary because the exam is conducted in two shifts across several days, with varying difficulty levels.
Therefore, a candidate’s percentile score reflects their relative performance compared to others who appeared in the same shift. It is the percentage of candidates who scored less than you in the exam.
For example, a candidate scoring 99 percentile means that they performed better than 99 per cent of the candidates in that particular session, and not that they scored 99 per cent of the total marks.
The formula used by the NTA to calculate a candidate’s percentile score is as follows:
Percentile Score = (Number of candidates who scored <= the candidate’s raw score / Total number of candidates in that session) × 100
Based on recent trends, here is an approximate marks-to-percentile comparison (out of 300):
290 - 300 marks: 99.99 percentile and above
270 - 289 marks: Around 99.9 - 99.99 percentile
250 - 269 marks: Around 99.5 - 99.9 percentile
230 - 249 marks: Around 99.2 - 99.5 percentile
210 - 229 marks: Around 99 - 99.2 percentile
190 - 209 marks: Around 98.5 - 99 percentile
170 - 189 marks: Around 97.5 - 98.5 percentile
150 - 169 marks: Around 96 - 97.5 percentile
130 - 149 marks: Around 94 - 96 percentile
110 - 129 marks: Around 91 - 94 percentile
90 - 109 marks: Around 85 - 91 percentile
70 - 89 marks: Around 75 - 85 percentile
Below 70 marks: Generally below 75 percentile
It is important to note that these are averages, and tend to fluctuate every year depending on the difficulty level of the exam that year.