2 min readNew DelhiMay 15, 2026 12:55 AM IST
Besides a drop of around three points in the overall pass percentage this year, the CBSE Class 12 results have also seen a major dip in the number of students scoring 90% and above.
The number of high scorers has fallen to 94,028 from 1.12 lakh last year, data from the Board shows.
There were around 94,299 Class 12 students who scored 90% or above in 2019, the pre-Covid year. The number surged in the Covid years when final results were arrived at using assessments conducted by the schools themselves. The number of students scoring 90% and above peaked at 1.58 lakh in 2020, and stood at 1.50 lakh in 2021 when the Board declared results using marks from unit tests, pre-board and mid-term exams and the student’s performance in class 10 and 11.
It dropped to 1.35 lakh in 2022, when the Board conducted exams in two terms with half the syllabus being tested in each term. When regular board exams returned in 2023, the number fell further to 1.13 lakh.
In 2024, the figure stood at 1.16 lakh, before dropping to 1.12 lakh last year, and 94,028 this year.
It is learnt that the on-screen marking system that the Board introduced this year had a role to play in ensuring that assessments were objective. The system through which answer papers were evaluated digitally helped reinforce the Board’s emphasis on providing marks for steps in solving problems rather than just handing out marks for the final answer. The digital process meant that the marks given for these steps were tracked closely, with no room for error.
While the number of students who scored over 90% this year has dropped by around 16% compared to 2025, the fall in the number of students who scored 95% and above has been steeper. This figure fell by around 31% — from 24,867 in 2025 to 17,113 this year. This year’s figure is also a little below the 2019 number of 17,693.
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As with the number of over 90% scorers, the number of over 95% scorers also surged during the Covid years, peaking at 70,004 in 2021, and falling to 22,622 in 2023 when regular board exams resumed after the pandemic.