What does the percentile score for JEE mean

NEW DELHI: The Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)-Main, the entrance exam for undergraduate courses in Engineering colleges will provide a percentile -based score instead of absolute marks from 2019 onwards. Since the JEE exam will be conducted twice a year by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the agency will allot different set of question papers to each batch. There were concerns that the different sets might lead to difference in difficulty levels of the exams.
"Percentile-based marking system provides a level playing field to the aspirants as the score is generated after a comparative study of all the candidates.Thus, the difficulty level of the exam does not affect the score," said ML Sharma, organising chairperson, JEE (Advanced) 2019.
"After the percentile scores, ranks will be awarded to the JEE (Mains) candidates post the April cycle is complete. These ranks will be used to qualify students for the JEE (Advanced). The admission to the IITs would continue to be awarded on the basis of Advanced ranks," said Sharma.
Percentile system is currently being used in MBA entrances, GATE and undergraduate entrance test conducted by AIIMS.
To award ranks and avoid ties in case of similar scores, the percentile would be awarded up to seven decimal places; however, guidelines in this regard are still awaited, added Sharma. If scores are same upto the seventh decimal, the older candidate will be ranked higher.
According to reports, a core group of experts from IITs, IIM-Lucknow, NITs, UGC, IASRI (Pusa) and AIIMS among others have been asked to finalise the process for calculating the percentile score
After the first session of JEE (Main) is completed in January, the result declared will display four different scores (NTA scores); one for each of the three subjects (Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry) and the total score, which will be the percentile, for that attempt. The same would be repeated for the April cycle and a master percentile will be prepared and ranks awarded thereafter.