The National Testing Agency (NTA) has officially released the final scorecards and national ranks for the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) - 2026 Paper 2. Aspiring architects and town planners across the nation can now access their final raw percentages mapped into normalized NTA scores.
Since 2019, the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India has entrusted the NTA with the responsibility of conducting this premier assessment. This year's cycle successfully assessed students over two separate phases to provide them with multiple opportunities to improve their scores.
Securing a high score in the JEE Main Paper 2 is the gateway to some of the most prestigious architectural and planning programs in India. Successful candidates can gain admission to highly esteemed National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Schools of Planning and Architecture (SPAs), and top-tier central universities.
Graduating from these premium institutes opens up career prospects as certified architects, urban planners, landscape designers, real estate consultants, and regional planning advisors. The specialized knowledge tested in these exams is crucial for driving sustainable infrastructure development globally.
The examination was held across two distinct phases to provide candidates with flexibility and to capture their best performance. Below is the structured breakdown of the examination schedule:
Note: The Session 2 examination was conducted on 07 April 2026 in a single shift, utilizing 13 distinct languages: Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
To understand the competitive landscape of the JEE Main 2026 Paper 2, it is essential to look at the registration and actual attendance numbers. Below are the finalized statistics released by the NTA.
These are the dedicated students who attempted both opportunities to maximize their scoring potential:
To ensure complete transparency, the NTA has detailed the demographic distribution of the participating student body.
*Note: PwBD candidates are also part of the mentioned Gender-wise Registered and Appeared candidates.
Below are the meritorious national toppers who have clinched outstanding positions in JEE Main 2026 Paper 2.
NTA scores are normalized across multi-shift papers to neutralize any discrepancies in paper difficulty level. The scores represent the percentage of candidates who have scored equal to or below that particular candidate in a specific session.
The official NTA Normalization formula is as follows:
$$\text{NTA Score} = 100 \times \frac{\text{No. of candidates appeared in 'Shift' with raw score EQUAL TO OR LESS than candidate}}{\text{Total number of candidates who appeared in the 'Shift'}}$$
Note: The final rank list is produced using the best NTA score among the multi-session attempts, preventing any structural disadvantage due to different shift distributions.
To check and download your official JEE Main 2026 Paper 2 Scorecard, follow these detailed, step-by-step instructions:
https://jeemain.nta.nic.in/ or check notifications on www.nta.ac.in.Always verify all details on the official government website before submitting your application.