Rank 1, 2018
JEE Advanced is the second stage of India's engineering entrance system, sat only by those who clear JEE Main, and its rank list allocates places branch by branch across the Indian Institutes of Technology. In 2018 Goyal topped it with 337 out of 360, competing from the Roorkee zone.
The first stage had already marked him out: 350 out of 360 in JEE Main, All India Rank 4, a percentile India.com renders as 99.9993. The school record behind the results is equally consistent, a perfect 10 CGPA in Class 10 and the top place in the Tricity region in the CBSE Class 12 non-medical stream. He had also cleared the final stage of the National Talent Search Examination in 2016, which carries an NCERT scholarship.
IIT Bombay, and the branch everyone wants
Goyal used the rank the way the system expects: computer science at IIT Bombay, the branch and campus combination that sits at the top of the preference list every year. He graduated in 2022 and received an Institute Academic Award in 2020 for his second-year performance, which is a marker that the entrance result was not a one-day phenomenon.
The internships listed for him read as a deliberate progression rather than a scatter: a data analyst internship at the education company Vedantu in June and July 2019, an application developer internship at Albia Biocare in 2020, a research internship at the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, and then a trading internship at Jane Street in 2021.
The trading desk
From July 2022 he has worked as a quantitative trader for Jane Street in Hong Kong. The firm is a proprietary trading house that recruits heavily from mathematics and computer science departments, and it has become one of the largest single destinations for graduates of the IITs' strongest branches.
The appeal on both sides is legible. A trading firm is buying the same capacity the entrance examination measures: fast, accurate reasoning under time pressure, with no partial credit. The graduate is selling it into the market that pays most for it. Whether that is a good use of a national selection system built to produce engineers is a question Indian commentators have asked for two decades, and it is not one the individual candidate can be expected to answer.
The Panchkula record
Goyal's school was Bhavan Vidyalaya in Sector 15, Panchkula, on the edge of Chandigarh, and India.com describes his parents as owners of a pharmaceutical business. The detail matters because of how the topper narrative is usually told in India, as a story either of privation overcome or of coaching-hub intensity.
This one is neither. It is a conventional urban professional household, a strong day school, and a candidate who was already winning national scholarships two years before the entrance examination. Not every top rank is a reversal of fortune, and the record here does not pretend otherwise.
What is documented, and what is not
Firm: Goyal is from Chandigarh and attended Bhavan Vidyalaya, Sector 15, Panchkula; he topped JEE Advanced 2018 with 337 out of 360 and scored 350 out of 360 in JEE Main for All India Rank 4; he took a computer science degree at IIT Bombay, graduating in 2022, with an Institute Academic Award in 2020; he has been a quantitative trader at Jane Street in Hong Kong since July 2022; his parents own a pharmaceutical business.
Not documented: his birth year and age, any direct quotation from him, his preparation routine, and anything about his life outside the sequence of results and roles. The source is a career summary, and it reads like one.
Watch: Pranav Goyal on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pranav Goyal | India | All India Rank 1, JEE Advanced 2018 | — |
| Chitrang Murdia | India | All India Rank 1, JEE Advanced 2014 | — |
| Kalpit Veerwal | India | 360 out of 360 in JEE Main 2017, All India Rank 1 | — |
| Vavilala Chidvilas Reddy | India | All India Rank 1, JEE Advanced 2023 | — |
| Ved Lahoti | India | Topping JEE Advanced 2024 with 355 out of 360 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- All India Rank 1 in JEE Advanced 2018 with 337 out of 360
- 350 out of 360 and AIR 4 in JEE Main; NTSE final stage cleared in 2016
- Computer science at IIT Bombay, graduated 2022, with an Institute Academic Award in 2020
- Quantitative trader at Jane Street, Hong Kong, since July 2022
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Birth year and age are not stated
- No direct quotation from him appears in the source
- Nothing is documented about his preparation routine or life outside work
Questions people ask about Pranav Goyal
What rank did Pranav Goyal get?
All India Rank 1 in JEE Advanced 2018, with 337 marks out of 360. In JEE Main he scored 350 out of 360 for All India Rank 4.
Where did he study?
Computer science at IIT Bombay, graduating in 2022.
Where does he work now?
As a quantitative trader for Jane Street in Hong Kong, from July 2022, according to the 2025 report used here.
Which school did he attend?
Bhavan Vidyalaya in Sector 15, Panchkula, near Chandigarh. He topped the CBSE Class 12 non-medical stream in the Tricity region.
How old is Pranav Goyal?
No source consulted gives his birth year or age.
What do his parents do?
India.com describes them as owners of a pharmaceutical business.
What is JEE Advanced?
The second stage of India's engineering entrance examination, taken by candidates who clear JEE Main. The resulting rank determines which IIT and which branch a student may choose.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Pranav’s story?
What did Pranav Goyal score in JEE Advanced 2018?
Which branch did he take at IIT Bombay?
Where does he work?
Sources
- Meet Pranav Goyal, IIT-JEE topper who scored 350 marks out of 360 in JEE Main — India.com, 2025-02-20
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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