NEW DELHI: The top 100 JEE rankers seem to have made two clear choices: IIT Bombay, where 61 of them or nearly 2/3rds blocked a seat, and IIT Delhi, which 30 others picked. Of the remaining nine, seven have signed up for IIT Madras while two, Chirag Falor (rank 1) and Muhender Raj (rank 4), have chosen to pursue education in the US.

At close of round one of admissions, a look at the options exercised by the top 100 rankers reveals that Kharagpur and Kanpur, once considered amongst the best IITs, have dropped in popularity. About 30 years ago, IIT-Kharagpur was the preeminent centre for engineering.

The oldest of the IITs, it did not receive a single student from the top 100 this year. If the net is widened to look at the top 500 or 1,000 students, again Bombay, Delhi, Madras make up the top three in the same order though Kanpur and Kharagpur have a sizeable representation in this club.

A part from the two in the top 10 who opted out of IIT, two more — one between ranks 301 and 400 and another between ranks 401 and 500 — have declined a seat.

NIT or an IIIT if they don’t secure a place in any of the IITs for that particular branch,” said aJOSAAfaculty.

“We know toppers opt for IIT Bombay because of the quality of education they get here. This is a melting pot, attracting students from across the country; the academic ambience, the rigour and the research make academic life here competitive and we see that since the last 8-10 years similar number of toppers come to our campus,” said IIT-B director Subhasis Chaudhari. IIT Delhi director Ramgopal Rao said, “It is difficult to tell why students make the choices they make, but many follow previous year trends.”

A former JEE chairman said, “While Bombay and Delhi were still building themselves, Kharagpur’s students had already occupied top positions in big firms. Students looked at Kharagpur’s illustrious alumni and rushed there. Now this has changed.”

Among the rest, Roorkee, Guwahati and Hyderabad have also quite a few takers from the top 1,000. There are 23 IITs in all with roughly 16,000 seats. Hyderabad, which has launched a cutting-edge BTech programme in artificial intelligence and machine learning, is a relative newcomer in the top 1,000 matrix.

Of the top 500 rankers, 33 have taken a seat in IIT Roorkee.