Rank is the ordinal position of a student in a competitive list. Unlike percentile or percentage — both of which are continuous measures — rank is a single integer. Rank 1 is the top scorer; ranks degrade with falling scores.
In Indian competitive exams, three rank types are common:
• All India Rank (AIR) — position across the entire national candidate pool. Headline metric for JEE Main, NEET, GATE. • Category Rank — position within a reservation category (OBC, SC, ST, EWS). Determined by sorting only candidates of that category by score. • Domicile / State Rank — position within a state quota, used for state-level engineering and medical admission counselling.
In school results, "Class Rank" is the position within a single class section — usually published informally rather than on the official marksheet. CBSE and most state boards intentionally do not publish per-student ranks at school level, only state-level toppers.
A subtle point: ranks tied at the same score are resolved by tie-breaker rules published per-exam. JEE Main applies a sequential tie-breaker (Math marks first, then Physics, then Chemistry, then age). NEET uses a similar deterministic sequence.