How the college predictor works

This page explains, without jargon, how the RankOtalk predictor turns your rank into a list of colleges and why you should treat that list as a guide rather than a guarantee.

The idea

In JoSAA counselling, every seat is given to the best-ranked candidate who wants it. After each round, JoSAA publishes the closing rank of every seat group: the rank of the last candidate who got that seat. If your rank is better than a seat’s past closing rank, you would have been allotted that seat in that round of that year.

Step by step

  1. You enter your rank, category, gender and home state.
  2. We keep only the seat groups that apply to you. Your category decides which rank list and seats are used. Your gender decides whether the female-only pool is included. Your home state decides whether Home State seats at an NIT apply to you.
  3. For each seat group we compare your rank with the past closing rank.
  4. A seat is marked Safe when your rank is comfortably better than the closing rank, Moderate when it is close, and Reach when it is slightly worse. Seats that are far out of reach are left out.
  5. The list is sorted from the most competitive seats to the least, and you can filter it by branch.

What is covered

  • NITs, IIITs and GFTIs, which admit through JEE Main rank.
  • The OPEN, EWS, OBC-NCL, SC and ST categories.
  • Gender-neutral and female-only seats, and Home State seats at NITs.

What is not covered

  • IITs, which admit through JEE Advanced rank.
  • PwD seat groups.
  • Private universities and state counselling, which have their own processes.

Limits you should know about

Past closing ranks show a pattern, not a rule. Each year the number of seats, the difficulty of the paper, the number of candidates and the popularity of branches change, and closing ranks also shift between rounds. A prediction can therefore be too optimistic or too cautious. That is why the results are grouped into Safe, Moderate and Reach, and why we suggest filling a wide list in your true order of preference.

Official sources

For anything that decides your admission, such as dates, fees, eligibility and the seat matrix, use the official websites: JoSAA,JEE Main (NTA) andCSAB.

Corrections

If you spot something wrong, tell us on the contact page and we will look into it.