The first phase of the IIT JEE Mains for 2026 wrapped up earlier this year. About 1.3 million students took the initial exam in January, and it is expected that 1.6 million will attempt the second in April. As competition increases during this period, a common question among JEE aspirants revolves around the success rate.
There are 18,000 seats available across all 23 IITs, while the top IITs together have fewer than 9,000 seats. The success rate is just 1.12%. As competition has increased each year, interest in IITs has stayed steady over the past few decades.
Let’s examine the reason behind this craze. I often hear a common statement from parents: Beta, IIT crack karo aur life set ha. Son, crack the IIT, and you will be well settled in life.
Over the past 2-3 years, IITs have been central to India’s engineering education. Founded in the 1960s, they played a crucial role in the industrial revolution of the early 1970s and, after liberalization, helped drive the growth of the computer and internet industries. In the 1970s, major employers included leading manufacturing and industrial firms like L&T, TELCO, SAIL, BHEL, BEL, and Reliance. After liberalization, top recruiters expanded their reach to global giants such as Verizon, AT&T, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Oracle. This shift clearly demonstrates that both Indian and international companies are increasingly participating in campus placements, turning IIT into a global brand.
Over the years, IIT alumni have assumed leadership roles in various global companies. The list includes Google’s Sundar Pichai from IIT Kharagpur; IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, a graduate of IIT Kanpur; Shantanu Narayen from Adobe, an alumnus of IIT Delhi; Aravind Srinivasan, CEO of Perplexity, and an IIT Madras alumnus; and Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and former CEO of Infosys, who started the company alongside Mr. Murthy, also a proud alumnus of IIT Mumbai. Many IIT graduates hold senior positions or lead startups in Silicon Valley, and the IIT brand continues to grow beyond India and around the world. Today, IIT is a recognized global brand and is viewed as a pathway to rewarding career opportunities.
This year’s placements were primarily led by companies in the tech sector, including Google, Amazon, Databricks, Oracle, and Microsoft, as well as consulting giants such as McKinsey, BCG, and Accenture. The highest-paying firms were those involved in trading, including DaVinci Derivatives, Tower Research Capital, James Street, and APT Portfolio, all of which rely heavily on quantitative skills. Other major industries included banking, finance, startups, and core engineering companies. Recently, news reported an IIT Roorkee student securing a 2.8 crore job offer from Da Vinci Trading in Amsterdam. Soon after, an IIT Madras student set a new record with a 4.3 crore offer from James Street in Hong Kong. Several other top offers also exceeded 1 crore. These remarkable cases strengthen the belief among many middle-class families that attending IIT guarantees lucrative salaries. This widespread misconception highlights how high-profile placements boost IIT’s reputation, sometimes creating unrealistic expectations.
But these headlines distort the true picture. The highest salaries are international, and such offers make up less than 1% of students. Most placements range from 18 to 25 lakhs. The reality is that not every IIT graduate gets a job paying over a crore, despite the common belief. The gap between expectation and reality is at the heart of both the IIT craze and the stress its students face.
These high expectations pressure the student community at IITs, significantly contributing to the rising suicide rates there. Mahajan Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, says, “The academic environment at IIT is so intense that it is not suitable for the faint-hearted. The CGPA system at IIT requires constant alertness—putting students in a competition where being good at the subject is not enough; you must be better than the person next to you. This makes the system rigorous and stressful, to say the least. Another IIT alumnus mentioned, “You are competing with the best from a particular city or town or village, and there is no room for complacency. A student from IIT Kharagpur states,”
Another student, Rohit Saxena from IIT Bombay, remembered that the system at IIT could sometimes be harsh. He recalled a test where students had three hours to answer four questions. It was an open-book exam, allowing laptops and books to help solve problems. Despite this, it was so difficult that most students couldn’t even attempt a single question. At the end of the three hours, the professors arrived at the exam venue and saw that most students hadn’t attempted any questions. They said you could take another three hours to finish the four questions. The student recalled, “The world knows it is tough to get into IITs; only we know it is tougher to survive inside IIT.”
Another student from IIT mentions that imposter syndrome sometimes affects students who are average in their class. This happens because the academic culture is very demanding, and relative grading can overwhelm students throughout their four years at IIT. The CGPA system at IIT ensures that students must stay alert — it pushes us into a competition where simply being good is not enough; you have to be better than the person next to you. This relative grading makes the entire system intense and stressful, to say the least. Overcoming imposter syndrome requires effort and confidence in your ability to compete with the best.
Needless to say, coaching institutes sometimes make huge profits, even enrolling students for IIT starting from the 6th grade. Yes, you heard that right—from 6th grade. The intense academic and competitive pressure is depicted in the web series “Kota Factory,” where there’s fierce competition to join batches at top Kota coaching institutes. The results day scene, where AIR -1 is announced, and they showcase the topper’s name from their batch, giving the topper a BMW car and 50 lakhs cash prize, playing drums and dancing through the streets of Kota, has become a source of pride for these coaching institutes—highlighting what this craze is all about.
So, the obvious question is, is studying at IIT worth it? The answer is a big yes from these IIT students. They say it can be stressful at times, but it is fun, to say the least. Student life at the Indian Institutes of Technology is known for being intense, competitive, and highly enriching. It combines strong academics with a vibrant campus culture. The environment is intense, often involving constant, last-minute preparation for quizzes. However, it offers significant autonomy, allowing students to shape their own schedules and pursuits. There is a lively culture of clubs (coding, robotics, music, dance) and large, student-organized cultural and technical festivals (e.g., Sarang at IIT Madras).
Campuses attract students from all over India, creating a diverse and collaborative environment. Students often face high stress and must quickly learn to manage their lives, including laundry and meals, which can be a major adjustment. However, these challenges serve as opportunities to shape students into ideal candidates for bright future careers. One student mentioned IIT, saying, “Yes, it is challenging at times, but we learn a lot, and we build skills at IIT, which is very hard to beat.” He explained that at IIT, students learn to handle pressure, meet deadlines, work in teams, and most importantly, develop a winner’s mindset suited for facing the world. A student currently pursuing his master’s at MIT shared that surviving at IIT is more challenging than at MIT due to intense peer competition, limited resources, and immense pressure to secure top-tier placements. While MIT emphasizes holistic, research-driven learning, IITs often require extreme mental resilience to navigate their demanding, high-stakes environments. He mentioned that roughly 33,000 people apply to MIT each year, with about 1,500 accepted, whereas from 1.4 to 1.5 million applicants for JEE Mains, only about 150,000 advance to JEE Advanced for 17,000 seats, with a success rate of 1 percent. He remarked that after surviving four years at IIT, MIT seems like a walk in the park.
The dream of IIT is real and worth pursuing. Students spend a lot of money on coaching classes, sometimes starting as early as 9th grade, to turn this dream into reality. However, choosing to pursue an engineering degree, especially from IIT, should not be motivated by parental pressure, societal expectations, hype about dream packages, international job opportunities, or other external reasons. It should come from a genuine interest in engineering, along with the ability to compete and succeed in a challenging environment. If you’re truly passionate about IIT and prepared to put in the effort both during preparation and after admission, then it makes sense to go for it.
In the web series Kota Factory, Jeetu Bhaiya delivers a passionate speech to Vaibhav, an IIT aspirant, about who gets into IIT. He says, IIT mein Chatur nahi, sirf ranchos jhate hain. Getting into IIT isn’t just about being smart; you need to be highly passionate about IIT, from the preparation stage to the day you graduate.
For students who can’t attend IIT this year, remember that only 18,000 out of 1.5 million aspirants get into IIT annually. If you’re not among those who make it into IITs, stay positive—success isn’t solely defined by being an IIT student. You can find success elsewhere too.
For everyone saying Sundar Pichai is from IIT, there is also Satya Nadella from Microsoft, who is not an IIT alumnus and yet became the CEO of Microsoft.
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