NIT female-only seats 2026: Other State OPEN seats closed a median 38% later

In JoSAA 2026, a female-only seat at an NIT usually closed well after the gender-neutral seat in the same program. Across 320 programs at 32 institutes, the typical Other State (OS) OPEN female-only seat closed 38% later than its gender-neutral twin. The female-only seat closed later in 305 of those 320 programs.

A later closing rank means the seat was easier to get. So for most NIT programs, a female candidate could reach a seat with a lower JEE Main rank through the female-only pool than through the gender-neutral one.

How we compared

• Two seat pools: JoSAA splits seats into a gender-neutral pool and a female-only pool. Female-only seats go only to female candidates; gender-neutral seats are open to all.
• Institutes: the 31 NITs and IIEST Shibpur, which our data groups with the NITs.
• Seats compared: Other State quota, OPEN category. Both seats in a pair are ranked by the JEE Main Common Rank List (CRL), so the two closing ranks can be compared directly. B.Arch and B.Plan, which use Paper 2 ranks, are left out.
• Pairs: a program counts only if it had both a gender-neutral and a female-only closing rank in 2026. That gives 320 programs at all 32 institutes.
• Closing rank: the latest closing rank over all JoSAA rounds of the year.
• Gap: the female-only closing rank divided by the gender-neutral one. A value of 1.38 means the female-only seat closed 38% later.

The female-only pool is much smaller. In these 320 programs it had 943 seats against 3,685 gender-neutral seats. In 94 programs there was just one female-only seat, so a single candidate decided its closing rank.

The gap at every institute

Sorted from the widest gap to the narrowest. "Median gap" is the typical gap across that institute's programs. The CSE columns show B.Tech Computer Science and Engineering, Other State, OPEN.

Institute	Programs	Female-only closed later in	Median gap	CSE gender-neutral	CSE female-only
MNIT Jaipur	10	10	70%	5,868	10,627
NIT Tiruchirappalli	9	9	63%	1,373	3,545
NIT Warangal	17	16	55%	2,581	4,777
NIT Rourkela	22	20	54%	4,266	7,133
MNNIT Allahabad	10	10	52%	5,375	11,805
NIT Surathkal	11	11	51%	1,954	4,019
NIT Silchar	6	6	51%	13,993	22,676
NIT Kurukshetra	19	19	50%	8,701	16,044
NIT Delhi	8	7	48%	8,669	14,656
NIT Hamirpur	11	11	43%	13,866	21,138
NIT Jalandhar	15	15	41%	13,411	20,101
NIT Jamshedpur	8	8	41%	9,574	19,131
NIT Durgapur	11	10	39%	12,281	20,260
VNIT Nagpur	13	13	38%	7,419	12,308
SVNIT Surat	12	11	38%	9,517	15,659
NIT Patna	17	16	38%	17,282	24,677
MANIT Bhopal	11	11	38%	10,512	17,679
NIT Calicut	12	11	33%	5,769	9,581
NIT Srinagar	8	8	30%	27,594	42,492
IIEST Shibpur	13	12	30%	18,799	29,308
NIT Manipur	5	5	29%	43,239	56,386
NIT Raipur	11	11	28%	16,439	22,506
NIT Uttarakhand	5	5	27%	22,140	32,986
NIT Sikkim	6	5	26%	31,060	37,756
NIT Agartala	9	9	24%	24,527	35,801
NIT Nagaland	6	6	23%	42,326	52,223
NIT Meghalaya	4	4	22%	28,662	29,745
NIT Andhra Pradesh	8	7	22%	22,225	28,545
NIT Arunachal Pradesh	6	6	21%	31,966	50,976
NIT Puducherry	5	5	20%	19,869	23,445
NIT Mizoram	7	6	15%	41,038	41,136
NIT Goa	5	2	-1%	16,638	20,501

The female-only CSE figures at NIT Meghalaya, NIT Puducherry and NIT Mizoram each rest on a single seat.

At seven institutes (MNIT Jaipur, NIT Tiruchirappalli, NIT Warangal, NIT Rourkela, MNNIT Allahabad, NIT Surathkal and NIT Silchar) the typical female-only seat closed more than 50% later. At NIT Goa it was the other way round in three of five programs, so the median dipped just below zero.

By branch

Computer Science had the widest gap. Median gap by branch group in 2026:

• Computer Science and IT: 52% (75 programs)
• Electrical: 42% (24)
• Mechanical and Production: 41% (46)
• Electronics: 40% (58)
• Chemical: 30% (26)
• Metallurgy and Materials: 27% (24)
• Civil: 24% (34)
• Science programs: 23% (14)
• Biotechnology: 1% (12)

The five widest gaps were all in computing or electronics: CSE at NIT Tiruchirappalli (2.58 times), IT at NIT Surathkal (3,088 against 7,676), AI and Data Science at NIT Delhi (7,022 against 15,710), ECE at NIT Surathkal (3,947 against 8,732) and CSE at MNNIT Allahabad (5,375 against 11,805).

Where female-only closed earlier

In 15 of the 320 programs the female-only seat closed before the gender-neutral one. Most were small: 12 of the 15 had one female-only seat. Four were Biotechnology (at NIT Andhra Pradesh, NIT Calicut, NIT Durgapur and NIT Warangal), and three were at NIT Goa (ECE, Electrical and Electronics, and Mechanical). With one or two seats, a single strong candidate can pull a closing rank much earlier.

Three years, and the Home State quota

The gap has stayed large. Using the same method for Other State OPEN seats, the median gap was 38% in 2024 (297 programs), 46% in 2025 (304) and 38% in 2026 (320).

For Home State OPEN seats, the gap in 2026 was smaller: a median 28% across 285 programs at 29 institutes, with the female-only seat closing later in 247 of them. Home State seats already close later than Other State seats, as our Home State vs Other State analysis shows.

For gender-neutral closing ranks at every NIT, see our NIT CSE ladder. To check any program for your own quota and seat pool, use the cutoff explorer.

Computer Science and related programs at NITs, Other State female-only seats, that closed earliest in 2026 (OPEN):

All ranks here are JEE Main CRL closing ranks from JoSAA 2026. A later closing rank means the seat was easier to get.