New Delhi: Ved Lahoti from the Delhi zone has topped the IIT entrance exam JEE-Advanced securing 355 out of 360 marks, the highest ever, officials said on Sunday.

The previous highest was 352 in 2022.

According to IIT Madras, which conducted the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)-Advanced this year, Dwija Dharmeshkumar Patel from IIT Bombay zone is the topper among female candidates with 332 marks. Her all-India rank is seven.

Four of the top 10 rank-holders are from IIT Madras. The second rank has been bagged by Aditya (Delhi zone) followed by Bhogalpalli Sandesh (Madras zone) at the third position.

Rhythm Kedia (IIT Roorkee zone), Putti Kushal Kumar (IIT Madras), Rajdeep Mishra (IIT Bombay zone), Koduri Tejeswar (IIT Madras zone), Dhruvi Hemant Doshi (IIT Bombay zone) and Alladabona SSDB Sidhvik Suhas (IIT Madras zone), have bagged the subsequent ranks in that order.

The maximum number of candidates have qualified from the IIT Madras zone, followed by the IIT Delhi Zone and the IIT Bombay zone. Among the top 500 candidates, 145 are from the IIT Madras zone, followed by 136 from the IIT Bombay zone and 122 from the IIT Delhi zone.

A total of seven foreign candidates have passed the exam while 179 Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) have also cleared it.

A resident of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Lahoti was enrolled in one of the several coaching centres in Rajasthan's Kota -- a hub for competitive examination preparation.

Talking to PTI, Lahoti said, "I devoted three to four hours for self-study every day and scored 332-340 in routine tests regularly. So, I was confident. Since the paper was a bit easy as compared to the test papers, I succeeded in securing 355 out of 360 marks."

Lahoti said he kept himself away from social media while preparing for the exam for the last two years in Kota.

"I scored very low in one of the routine tests but I did not get disappointed and instead focused on my weak aspects," he said in response to a query.

Lahoti's father Yogesh Lahoti said he was proud of his son's performance which was no less than a miracle.

"It is just like a miracle that my son has scored the highest ever marks in the history of JEE-Advanced. I was expecting this as my son has been very talented since childhood and that's why we named his Ved after Ved Vyas," Yogesh Lahoti, an engineer in a private company told PTI.

Maharshi Ved Vyas is credited for classifying the holy Hindu scripture Veda into four categories.

Explaining the criteria for inclusion in the rank list, a senior IIT Madras official said, "The aggregate marks will be calculated as the sum of marks obtained in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. The candidates have to satisfy the subject-wise as well as aggregate qualifying marks to be included in a rank list."

A total of 1,80,200 candidates appeared in both papers in IIT-JEE Advanced, of which 48,248, including 7,964 females, have qualified.

JEE-Main, which is the admission test for engineering colleges across the country, is the qualifying exam for JEE-Advanced. The exam was conducted on May 26.

The Joint Seat Allocation (JoSAA) counselling will begin on Monday.