4 min readNew DelhiJun 1, 2026 11:27 AM IST
The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, released the JEE Advanced results 2026 on Sunday night, and Shubham Kumar from the IIT Delhi zone has secured an all-India rank (AIR) 1. The 18-year-old has scored 330 out of 360 in JEE Advanced 2026, which came after he had already secured the 100th percentile in JEE Main, where he ranked AIR 6.
Shubham Kumar’s father, Shivkumar, runs a hardware business in Gaya, Bihar, while his mother, Kanchan Devi, is a homemaker. Born on September 20, 2008, Shubham has been an Allen Career Institute classroom student for the past two years.
He moved to Kota, Rajasthan, after Class 10 to prepare for the JEE and has now emerged as the top scorer in JEE Advanced 2026. Shubham plans to pursue a BTech in Computer Science at IIT Bombay — a goal he says he set for himself at the very beginning of his preparation and has now achieved.
Preparation & family
“My father has worked very hard to support my preparation. Seeing his happiness was the best moment,” he said, adding that he had seen his father toiling hard between finances for the exam. As Shubham puts it, the success is ‘beyond what he had imagined’.
“My father runs a hardware shop. It is not a large business, but he never once made me feel that money was a constraint. My mother managed everything at home and made sure I had no reason to worry about anything except studying,” he said.
Shubham’s elder sister is pursuing BTech in Computer Science at IIT Patna, so there was already an understanding at his home of what the IIT and JEE Advanced path looks like.
Decision to study in Kota
Though he was aware of the happenings in Kota; however, he and his family made a deliberate decision to continue his preparation in Kota. He chose to focus on the ecosystem that has made Kota what it is, where thousands of students come here year after year because it works for them and pushes them for success.
Story continues below this ad
“There should be a willpower, an urge from inside that we have to do something — only then can we achieve our goal,” he said.
Away from social media
Shubham made a conscious decision to stay away from social media. He used his phone only to stay connected with his parents and his teachers. “Social media is a time drain, but more than that, it is a mental drain. When you are preparing for something this demanding, every hour of attention matters,” he said.
Cricket and badminton were his only breaks, and that too only on Sundays. The rest of the week was entirely about preparation. Whenever he used to be hit by stress, meditation would help reset his mind enough to get back to books.
Preparation for JEE Advanced: A lookbook for future aspirants
Eight to ten hours of self-study every day was the norm; however, for Shubham, more important than the number of hours was the discipline and doing revision the same day. Whatever was taught in class that day, he would go back to his room and revise it the same evening, and he did not let backlogs build up.
Story continues below this ad
Beyond revision, he said in the interview that he practised questions daily — not just the ones he was comfortable with, but specifically the topics where he was weak. “If you only solve questions you already know, you are not preparing; you are performing. Real preparation is sitting with the problems that make you uncomfortable,” he said.
(With inputs from PTI)