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Reading college cutoffs honestly
Cutoffs are the single most-searched college admission data. They're also the most-misread. Rank predictors over-promise. "Last year's cutoff" is misleading. Here's the framework that actually works.
Official sources by exam
The only data worth trusting. Coaching-institute "cutoffs" are retrofitted from these.
JEE Advanced (IITs)
JoSAA portal ↗JoSAA publishes opening + closing rank for every IIT × branch × category × gender combination after each round (Round 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The Round-6 closing rank is the 'final cutoff' for that year.
JEE Main (NITs / IIITs / GFTIs)
JoSAA portal ↗Same JoSAA portal — Choice Filling for NIT / IIIT / GFTI rounds. CSAB Special Rounds happen after JoSAA closes (for vacant seats).
NEET UG (MBBS / BDS)
MCC portal ↗MCC runs All-India 15% quota + Deemed + Central Universities counselling. State counselling runs separately for state quota (85% in most states).
CLAT (NLUs)
Consortium of NLUs portal ↗Published merit + cutoff per NLU + category. Top NLU (NLSIU) closing rank typically 50-100 in general category.
CUET UG (Central Universities)
NTA / Samarth portal ↗CUET admission via individual university portals (DU, BHU, JNU, etc.). Each university publishes its own closing percentiles + scores.
CAT (IIMs)
IIM CAT portal ↗IIMs publish their cutoff sectional + overall percentile annually. Top IIMs cutoff ~99 percentile overall; gender + category-specific cutoffs vary.
GATE (PSUs + IIT MTech)
GATE portal ↗GATE scores feed into individual IIT MTech admissions + PSU-specific cutoffs (NTPC, ONGC, IOCL etc each publish own).
The 5-step method to use cutoffs
Step 1 — Get the previous 3-5 years' closing ranks
From JoSAA / MCC / NLU consortium / IIM-CAT websites. Build a spreadsheet — year × college × branch × category × gender × your rank. Trends matter more than single-year cutoffs (seats + applicants change).
Step 2 — Filter to YOUR category + gender
OBC-NCL cutoff for Mech at NIT Trichy is very different from General cutoff for CSE at IIT Bombay. The number you should track is YOUR demographic's cutoff.
Step 3 — Look at the TREND line, not single year
JEE Advanced 2022 saw a sudden CSE rank inflation due to seat increases. Single-year cutoffs misrepresent. Use 3-year median + a safety margin.
Step 4 — Apply rank predictor logic conservatively
Rank predictors are typically ±2000 rank accurate (sometimes worse). If a predictor says 'CSE @ IIT BHU likely with rank X', confirm X is well below the 3-year closing rank, not equal to it.
Step 5 — Plan a 5-college choice list with safety margin
JoSAA lets you fill 80+ choices. Front-load with stretch options (3-4 above your predicted rank), midload with likely-fit, and back-load with safety colleges. Skip the 'wishful thinking' choices that need ranks far above yours.
What Shishya doesn't ship (yet)
We don't yet publish a per-college × branch × year cutoff table on Shishya. Reasons:
- JoSAA / MCC publish authoritative data in real-time — caching it on a third-party site is value-light + creates staleness risk.
- Single-year cutoffs are misleading; we'd need to build trend visualisations + category filters to publish responsibly.
- Premium players (e.g., Careers360) have this; the real gap is in honest framing + decision-help, which is what we do here.
Roadmap: A cutoff explorer tool with 5-year trend charts per (college × branch × category × gender), driven from JoSAA + MCC scraped + maintained yearly. Shipping in Phase 6 of the colleges roadmap.