Is UPSC Tougher Than IIT Entrance Exam? Asks Anand Mahindra; Sparks Debate

While the UPSC civil services exam and JEE Advanced — the IIT entrance exam — are both considered among the toughest exams in the world, businessman Anand Mahindra’s recent post has sparked a UPSC vs IIT JEE debate. After watching the movie ’12th Fail’ which is based on Manoj Sharma, and Shraddha Joshi’s lives, Mahindra says he has spoken to several youths about the entrance exams in the country and taken their opinion on which one is the toughest. While he said one IIT graduate told him that UPSC is tougher, he left it to netizens to decide.

“After seeing #12thFail I checked around and spoke to a number of young people about the relative difficulty of our entrance exams. One of them was a graduate of IIT who is involved in a business startup but who has also taken the UPSC exam. He stated EMPHATICALLY that UPSC is much tougher than the IIT JEE. I wonder if this is a commonly held perception, in which case this ranking needs to change!” posted Mahindra on X.

As per the World Ranking, the toughest exam in the world is Gaokao Exam, China followed by IIT JEE at number 2 and UPSC at number 3. Mahindra’s post has sparked debate among netizens, with one user commenting UPSC is the “mother of all exams”, and another commenting, “UPSC is not tougher than JEE it’s more competitive.”

While Rahman Sheikh who cleared IRTS exam in 2016, said that UPSC “itself is not tough but it has 3 stages and every graduate can take it which makes the competition very tough. One small mistake and you are out of the race. But if difficulty level of question papers is compared, ofcourse, JEE is much more tougher.” (sic)

Another user commented “Competition is more when many people are chasing for few seats…in UPSC applicants are 11-12 lakh and seats are only 700-800 while in JEE total applicants are 12-13 lakhs and seats are around 30000…now compare which one is tough…” (sic)

IPS officer Archit Chandak who has also studied at IIT Delhi said that UPSC CSE is tougher than JEE Advanced because there are very few seats and the question formats, and paper patterns change regularly. “JEE is based more on logical reasoning and the exam itself is largely objective in nature, while in UPSC questions are thought provoking and require your own analysis,” said Chandak.

“It is not a perception, but a reality – in the UPSC civil services, examination, the best of all the streams including IIT/IIM, and all other disciplines of art and science combine together – including brilliant, medical graduates. Hence, the competition is tougher—number of seats far fewer,” said another user. (sic)