Major Mistakes To avoid in JoSAA Counselling 2025

Major Mistakes To avoid in JoSAA Counselling 2025

Umang KatariaUpdated on 24 Jun 2025, 11:17 AM IST

Major Mistakes to Avoid in JoSAA Counselling 2025 - JoSAA counselling 2025 is being conducted for admission to top IITs, NITs, IIITs, and GFTIs in India. Only those candidates who qualified for the JEE Main and JEE Advanced exams can participate in the JoSAA counselling process. Both the JEE exams are of great importance and require a lot of hard work. Even a single mistake during the JoSAA counselling process can be heartbreaking. Each year, several students miss out on the seats of JoSAA participating institutes due to a lack of knowledge about the admission process. To avoid this, candidates can start by knowing the complete schedule of JoSAA 2025 counselling. The authority announced the revised JoSAA counselling dates on the official website.

Major Mistakes To avoid in JoSAA Counselling 2025
Major Mistakes To avoid in JoSAA Counselling

Candidates will be allotted seats based on the availability of seats, rank, and filled choices. There are many situations where the seats are left vacant. Even if a candidate is upgrading from an NIT to an IIT, he/she need to report to a Reporting Centre (RC). If the candidate fails to report at the assigned RC, he/she will lose the seat. Due to some of these mistakes, a candidate fails to get admitted to the top IITs. Qualifying for the JEE Advanced or JEE Main and failing to participate in JoSAA counselling will lead to great disappointment amongst the candidates. Careers360 is here to help students avoid these mistakes during JoSAA 2025 counselling. Here we have listed some common mistakes made by students during JoSAA counselling and how you can avoid them.

Avoid these Major Mistakes During Counselling of JoSAA 2025

Mistake: Not filling the choices in order of priority, starting with the first preferred choice at the top.

How to avoid: During the choice-filling process, students have to add combinations (course and institute) as per their preferences or choices. However, many students add choice-filling options in an unplanned way. This is one of the mistakes that students may make at the time of JoSAA counselling 2025. The correct way is to add the choice or combination lists on top. The priority list will be defaulted and considered as the first choice of the candidate, even though the candidate meant something else. And once a candidate is offered a seat that is the candidate’s first choice, it cannot be changed. So, the candidate has no option but to accept the seat or reject it.

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To avoid such a perplexing situation, it is always advisable to first make a list of combinations in descending order of priority on a sheet of paper or a Word file. Try as many combinations as you can, and cross-check whether the order is right.

Mistake: Not understanding the meaning of Float, Freeze, and Slide

How to avoid: When the seat allotment process starts, the candidates must read all the notifications and news released on the official website. When a seat is offered, the candidate is asked to choose between these three options: Float, Freeze, and Slide. Now, being unsure about which of these terms, candidates found themselves in an uncomfortable position. Yes, some of us may wriggle out of the situation by enquiring what they mean, but the problem is when you have so much going inside your head and at such a crucial juncture, a blunder is only a hair’s breadth away.

So, to be on the safe side, finding out what the terms mean is recommended.

Float, Freeze, and Slide Options Explained

Freeze: When a seat is offered, candidates have the option to no longer be considered for any further rounds. The seat will be locked in your name. Candidates can opt for this option if they are confident enough with the allotted seat. Otherwise, the candidates can opt for any of the following two options.

Slide: By opting for this option, candidates can accept the seat while leaving the option open for upgradation to an academic program of higher preference, within the same institute.

Float: This option allows you to accept the seat, but leave the option of upgrading open. One basic difference between slide and float is the float option gives you the scope of upgrading to a higher preferred academic program in any institute.

Mistake: Filling choices that the candidate has no interest in.

How to avoid: Choice filling is probably the most critical factor of JoSAA counselling. Many candidates fill in only one or two one or two options correctly and then do not take care of the next couple of choices. But this is not the correct way of doing this, a candidate must list out all his/her favourite branches and institutes, and fill in those choices in the order of priority. Filling out the choices preferences-wise will get the chances higher to get your favourite seat. There are more than a dozen engineering disciplines on offer, so if you put your head together and devote enough time, you should be able to come up with a couple of disciplines that will interest you.

Also, JEE Advanced qualified candidates must consider the academic program + IIT combination. JEE Main candidates, meanwhile, will have to decide on the NITs, GFTIs, and IIITs where to pursue the program.

Mistake: Filling in only a handful of choices

How to avoid: To get your favorite seat, candidates are advised to fill at least some 50-odd combinations, unless the candidate is ranked within the top hundred, or maybe in the top 200. Even in the case of a top-ranked candidate, it is advisable not to take chances and fill in as many options as possible. It is because, while a candidate may be ranked in the top 100, we have to account for reserved category seats as well.

Consider this: A candidate, ranked AIR 100 in JEE Advanced, applies to Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay. Now, IIT Bombay has only some 60 odd Electrical Engineering seats. So, for the candidate to get admission based on his current ranking, several things will have to fall into place. Like many inside the top 100 must choose to study Electrical Engineering in some other institute. Ditto for reserved category candidates; a few of them may also need to opt elsewhere to make space for this candidate. But it is not prudent to rely on so many ifs and buts when things can so easily go wrong. The best solution then is to fill in as many choices as one can.

Mistake: Not taking clues from the cutoff trends of previous years.

How to avoid: Analysing the previous year's cutoff of JEE Advanced will give candidates insights into the counselling process. Using the analysis of previous year cutoff trends, candidates will be able to compare the category-wise opening and closing ranks for various engineering branches and institutes. However, the cutoff changes every year, and there is a pattern of change in these cutoff trends. Understanding this pattern will be helpful for candidates. For example, IIT Bombay is among the top favourites among students, so even if the cutoffs diverge, it won’t be by much. Secondly, the cutoff list will help the candidate identify the institutes he/she is likely to get admission. This information would be very handy when filling in the choices.

On the other hand, candidates who don’t check the cutoffs are making decisions randomly based on intuition, which might work sometimes but is most likely to misfire.

Mistake: Forgetting to lock choices.

How to avoid: It is a common mistake, but it does happen and can sometimes cause severe agony. In JoSAA counselling, if a candidate doesn’t lock the filled choices, the system will automatically lock the last saved choices. If the candidate has saved the choices in the correct order, there is little to worry about, but if, by chance, the candidate was expecting to come back and make modifications later on, it can’t be done once the system locks the saved choices. So, allotment will be as per the last saved choices, which may not reflect the actual preference of the candidate.

Mistake: Reporting at the wrong institute during Dual Reporting

How to avoid: If a candidate, has chosen the float option, is offered a seat in an NIT in one round, and later upgrades to an IIT in a subsequent round, the candidate has to report again for document verification, but at a reporting centre (RC) for IITs, and not an RC for NITs.

Reporting at the wrong institute will cost the candidate both the seats – the one initially accepted by the candidate and the one offered in a subsequent round.

JoSAA Choice Filling Tips

While filling out the choices, candidates must prioritize academic programs. There is no charge for filling out the JoSAA choice, so candidates must add more programs. After adding the programs, it is important to lock the JoSAA choices before the deadline, otherwise the last saved choices will be automatically saved.

How many choices should in fill in JoSAA?

Students have the opportunity to fill out the JoSAA choices. Before filling in the choices, candidates must check the JoSAA seat matrix and the cutoff trends. While making the preference of courses, candidates must add as many colleges as possible. But all the choices must be in priority order. Finally, lock the JoSAA choices before the deadlines.

By reading all the common mistakes mentioned above and following all the important instructions, candidates can avoid unexpected situations and get their favorite seat in JoSAA counselling 2025. Knowing all the important points can increase their chances of securing the desired admission. Don’t forget to remember all the above points and stay confident and positive during JoSAA counselling 2025. All the best!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What is the eligibility criteria for JoSAA Counselling 2025?
A:

To participate in JoSAA counselling, candidates should have qualified the JEE Main and JEE Advanced. 

Q: Should I fill all choices in JoSAA counselling?
A:

Yes, candidates need to make their preference of courses and institutes in JoSAA counselling.

Q: What is the last date of JoSAA counselling 2025?
A:

The authority has announced the JoSAA 2025 counselling dates on the official website.

Q: How to fill choices in JoSAA counselling
A:

Candidates need to complete the JoSAA registration and then fill the choices. To fill in the choices candidates have to access the login portal using the JEE Main application number and password.

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Questions related to JEE Advanced

On Question asked by student community

Have a question related to JEE Advanced ?

You can easily download IIT JEE 2025 papers in Hindi. For JEE Main, websites like Careers360 give shift-wise question papers with answers in Hindi. For JEE Advanced, you can get both Paper 1 and 2 in Hindi from the official site jeeadv.ac.in (https://jeeadv.ac.in/)

Hello Alka

For JEE Advance, the best 5 subjects through which you need to calculate your percentage is:

1. Physics
2. Chemistry
3. Mathematics
4. One language (which is English)
5. One other subject of your choice

So you will need to choose PCM + English + a 5th subject to calculate your percentage.

Hope this answer helps! Thank You!!!

Hello!

In JEE Advanced eligibility, the top 5 subjects from your board exam are considered. Usually, they are Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and any two other subjects from the main curriculum. If CMS is your optional subject and IT is an additional subject, the board will still calculate based on the 5 highest marks from your eligible subjects. Additional subjects are considered only if they replace a lower score from another subject. For example, if IT has a higher score than English or CMS, then IT can be counted. However, some boards follow strict rules where only main subjects are counted, so you must verify with your board’s official notification. The 75% criteria means your average percentage in those best 5 subjects must meet the requirement. My advice—list all your subjects, arrange them from highest to lowest marks, and take the top five as per rules.

Hope this clears your doubt!


Getting under AIR 100 in JEE Advanced in 6 months is very tough but possible if you already have strong basics and are scoring high in JEE Main-level tests. You'll need 10–12 hours of focused daily study, advanced problem-solving, and regular mock tests. If you're starting from scratch, it's unlikely, but you can still aim for a good IIT rank with consistent effort.

Hello,

To qualify for the JEE Advanced, you need to score a certain percentile or above. This percentile may change depending on those years competition. Generally you need a percentile of 93-94 to qualify for the JEE Advanced. So, every year only 250,000 candidates from the JEE Mains out of all candidates qualify for the JEE Advanced exam.

I hope it resolves your query!!