WBJEEB announces counselling reforms, allows fresh registration, choice changes at each round after 92,753 clear test
Times of India | 19 June 2026
Kolkata: Students, who have cleared their West Bengal Joint Entrance Exams, will be eligible for a fresh entry at every counselling round for admission to engineering courses and at every stage, they can change their subject as well as preferences for institutes: The WBJEE Board announced this revision on Thursday after the joint entrance results were declared. Of the 94,901 students, who appeared for the entrance test to engineering courses in Bengal, 92,753 qualified.
To make these choices, students will be able to check the admission trend at every institute that will be available on the counselling portal.
WBJEEB chairman Goutam Pal said the counselling portal would open soon after the WBJEE Board received the seat matrix from the higher education department and the likely date was either the last week of June or the first week of July. But most of the top 10 rank-holders in West Bengal JEE this year pointed out that they aimed to study at the IITs or other central institutes, a majority of which were outside Bengal. Asked about this trend of students moving out of the state for higher studies in the past few years, Pal declined to comment. All he said was: “We conduct the entrance test. We cannot answer these other things.”
Also, pointed out an expert, none among the top five rank-holders was from West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. Only two students among the top 10 had studied their plus-II at HS schools, both in West Midnapore, the expert said.
The WBJEE top position was bagged by Shaswat Banerjee, who, in fact did his plus-II in Kota, where he studied at Nalanda Academy Senior Secondary School, Rajasthan. Souriddha Mandal from Vivekananda Mission School ranked second, Umang Bhoot from PURV International School, Durgapur, third, Rahul Konar from DPS Newtown School fourth and Sarban Bhattacharya from Garden High School, IISER Kolkata Campus, Nadia, the fifth position. These five schools are affiliated to either CBSE or CISCE. The two state board students among top 10 are Arha Bhattachary from Chandrakona Jirat High School in West Midnapore and Manish Senapati from Midnapore Collegiate School, also from the same district.
A JEE Board official said the counselling rules were revised to offer students an advantage. “We have seen students making mistakes while filling in their choices. From this time, they will not have to necessarily stick to their original choice and can change it at each of the three rounds of counselling. Also, if a candidate misses the initial registration window, he or she can enter in the second or third round. Earlier, a candidate, who missed this first window of registration, could get a fresh entry only in the mop-up round,” the official said. Students will have unlimited options of listing preferences in multiple colleges and they can check the portal for last year’s trends before locking their choices for a round. “The candidates can gauge whether they have a realistic chance at a particular college or they should try elsewhere,” he added.
Pal said among the total qualified candidates, 19,088 were from other states this year. Last year, 1.1 lakh appeared for the test, among whom 23,850 were from outside.
(With inputs from Sagnik Bhaduri, Anusha Kumar and Aradhya Mohan)