Jharkhand's pride meter raced merrily today as more than 600 students from the state — nearly four times the number last year — cracked the prestigious IIT joint entrance examination (JEE).

In 2008, of the 10,000 students who appeared for IIT-JEE, only 150 succeeded. This time, despite a radical change in question pattern, the number of successful candidates went up in a phenomenal way.

Both Bokaro and Jamshedpur claimed 200-odd winners each while Ranchi boasted 150 and Dhanbad 43. Over 10,000 students had appeared for the examination this year, too.

Nilanshu Agrawal of Chinmaya School, Bokaro, secured an all-India rank of 94 to top the state. Nishant, a student of DAV Public School, Bistupur, is probably the state runner-up with an all-India rank of 141.

The merit list from Ranchi includes Jitendra Kumar of St Xavier's College (236) and Gaurav Mishra (240) of Jawahar Vidya Mandir (JVM). Ankit Mahto of DBMS English School, who topped the ISC from Jamshedpur ranked 560. G. Vignesh of Vidya Bharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya who scored the highest in CBSE Class XII stood 1.747. The toppers' tally in Dhanbad district was led by Pranay Ranjan, a student of Delhi Public School, who ranked 295.

Though the state has done admirably well in the IIT-JEE, experts feel the result in the east zone (Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh) was not up to the mark. As many as 928 students have cleared the exam from the zone.

"Blame it on migration or other reasons, the results were far better in other parts of the country. Students from the east performed better in the past couple of years," said Pramod Dubey, the director of Prerna Classes. The coaching institute in Jamshedpur claimed 57 rank holders and 181 on the extended merit list (EML).

The EML students are absorbed by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) and Indian Institute of Science and Research (IISR) among others.

Jamshedpur topper Nishant said he agreed. "I, too, expected a better rank — somewhere in the eighties. I am not very happy. My future will be clear after the counselling next month, but my first preference will always be IIT, Kanpur. I will like to take up electronic engineering and continue research in the field. The country needs more scholars than professionals," Nishant told The Telegraph.

Koustav Dey of Jawahar Vidya Mandir, Shyamali, who ranked 313 echoed Nishant. "I had expected to do better. I will decided on my stream after consulting my mentors," he said. Some students said the change in pattern of questions worked to their disadvantage and they did not score as they had expected to. "The subjective questions in physics, chemistry and mathematics were unexpected," said Preeti Choudhary, a student of JVM who has ranked 3151.

Unlike 2008, this year several changes were noticed in question papers. These included subjective questions and negative marking.

"The subjective questions needed imagination to be answered correctly. Many students told me that they found these questions difficult. But for students who had their basics in the subjects clear, these questions would really have been a boon," said J. Mohanty, the principal of Delhi Public School, Ranchi, where more than a dozen students have qualified IIT-JEE.

Currently, there are 15 IITs across the country that have 8,295 seats on offer. The cut-off is expected to be between 165 and 170, including paper I and paper II, though there has been no official declaration yet. Counselling for IIT admission will begin in the state from June 9 and continue till June 16.

Though a majority of the students who cracked the IIT entrance test studied in elite schools, there were quite a few who boasted humble cradles, some even in villages.