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8 Government Exams Ranked by Real Chance of Selection: Why SBI PO's Odds Are Worse Than UPSC's
Before anything else, one thing needs to be said plainly, the way the reel said it. This is not a ranking of which exam is hardest, most prestigious, or has the toughest syllabus. It is only a ranking of applicants versus seats, for the most recent completed cycle of each exam. Difficulty, syllabus depth and prep timeline are covered separately for every exam below, and that ranking does not always move in the same direction as the odds.
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What this page ranks, and only this: real applicants divided by real seats, for one completed cycle per exam. Nothing about difficulty, prestige, or which exam is "better" is folded into this number. SBI PO comes out with the toughest odds of the eight, 1 in 1,398, worse than UPSC Civil Services at 1 in 984. That is the applicants-to-seats math for their most recent cycles, not an opinion about which exam matters more.
🔢 The Key Numbers
1 in 1,398
SBI PO 2025: 8.39 lakh applicants for just 600 seats, the toughest odds of all eight exams, and SBI PO's lowest seat count in five cycles.
1 in 984
UPSC Civil Services 2024: 9.93 lakh applicants, 1,009 finally recommended. Widely assumed to be the toughest exam in India, it ranks 4th of 8 on pure odds.
1.08 Cr
RRB Group D 2025: the single largest applicant pool of all eight exams, yet it ranks 6th of 8 because 32,438 seats were also on offer.
1 in 192
SSC CGL 2024: the easiest real odds of the eight, 34.83 lakh applicants against 18,174 seats spread across 36+ post types.
👤 Anshul Wadhwa · Career Counsellor, AptiGuide · Based in Jalandhar, works with students across India planning government exam attempts · every number on this page is sourced to an official exam authority or a named exam-prep aggregator (full list in Sources, near the bottom)
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Deciding whether to attempt one of these at all?This page shows you the odds and the syllabus. It can't tell you if a multi-year government exam attempt actually fits how you think and work. AptiGuide's free 5-minute career test can, no signup wall to see your result.
Ranked from #1 (worst real odds of selection) to #8 (best real odds), purely by applicants divided by seats for each exam's most recent completed cycle.
Every exam below has its odds ratio, government job category, who is actually eligible to apply, the real stage-by-stage syllabus, a separate difficulty read, the exam calendar, and how students actually prepare. Click "full stage-by-stage syllabus" on any card to expand it.
1
SBI PO
🔴 1 in 1,398
"600 seats against 8.39 lakh applicants, the worst odds of any exam on this page."
🏦 Banking (SBI)🎓 Graduate, any discipline📅 2025 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: SBI PO is recruited directly by State Bank of India, separate from the common IBPS process. Any graduate, any discipline, no minimum percentage, is eligible, age 21 to 30 as of the cycle's cutoff, with 3-year relaxation for OBC and 5 years for SC/ST. Attempts are capped at 4 for General/EWS and 7 for OBC, unlimited for SC/ST. Fresh graduates need no work experience.
📚 Source: SBI official notification; BankersAdda application data 2025
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Prelims (objective, qualifying only): English Language (40 Q), Quantitative Aptitude (30 Q), Reasoning Ability (30 Q), 20 minutes per section, 100 marks total. Mains: an objective paper covering Reasoning & Computer Aptitude, Data Analysis & Interpretation, General/Economy/Banking Awareness, and English Language, plus a descriptive paper (essay and letter writing), sections are individually timed. Final stage: Group Exercise and Interview. Final merit combines Mains (out of 230) with Group Exercise/Interview (out of 50), Prelims marks don't count toward merit.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: SBI PO is one of the few exams here with a Group Exercise stage in addition to a written interview, which tests things a written paper can't. Data Analysis & Interpretation in Mains is widely reported by successful candidates as the toughest single section. Negative marking applies at both Prelims and Mains.
Exam calendar: Conducted annually. Typical pattern: notification around April, Prelims around August, Mains around October, final result and joining into the next cycle.
Full Prep TimelineMost successful candidates report 4 to 8 months of focused preparation if starting from a reasonable base, with a 3-month compressed timeline possible for repeat aspirants who already know the pattern. Counting from notification to final joining, the realistic full timeline runs 8 to 10 months. Coaching is common for structured mock-test series and speed-building in Data Analysis, but a large share of aspirants prepare through self-study using bank-exam-specific mock platforms and video content, both are legitimate, well-worn paths.
Anshul's take: parents hear "SBI" and assume it's the safer bet next to something like UPSC. The seat-to-applicant math for 2025 says the opposite, this was the single toughest ratio of the eight exams on this page, and it's largely because the seat count was unusually low that year, not because SBI became a harder exam overnight.
2
RRB NTPC
🔴 1 in 1,053
"1.21 crore applicants for 11,558 seats, across two separate eligibility tracks."
Why it's here and who's eligible: NTPC covers non-technical popular categories in Indian Railways, split into Undergraduate posts (12th pass, age 18 to 33) and Graduate posts (any graduate, age 18 to 36), with 3-year OBC and 5-year SC/ST relaxation on both. Some posts additionally require typing speed (30 wpm English or 25 wpm Hindi). This dual eligibility bar is part of why the applicant pool is so large, both 12th-pass and graduate candidates compete for these seats.
Full syllabus, stage by stage: CBT 1 (100 questions, 90 minutes, qualifying/normalising only): General Awareness, Mathematics, General Intelligence & Reasoning. CBT 2: same three subjects at greater depth and volume, normalised marks decide shortlisting. Typing Skill Test or Computer Based Aptitude Test (CBAT) applies only to specific posts like Station Master and Traffic Assistant. Final stages: Document Verification and Medical Examination. Negative marking is one-third mark per wrong answer.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: The syllabus itself overlaps heavily with SSC exams, which is why many aspirants prepare for NTPC and SSC CGL/CHSL side by side as a combined strategy. The real difficulty here isn't content depth, it's speed and accuracy under an unusually large competing pool at the CBT 1 filtering stage.
Exam calendar: Irregular, not annual. Notifications have come with multi-year gaps, the cycle before this one was 2019. This is flagged explicitly, don't expect an NTPC notification every year the way you would for SSC or banking exams.
Full Prep Timeline6 months to 1 year is the typical window reported by successful candidates. Because the syllabus mirrors SSC exams closely, many aspirants run a combined 6 to 12 month prep cycle covering NTPC, SSC CGL and SSC CHSL together rather than treating NTPC as a separate track. Coaching is available in dedicated railway-exam batches, but a large self-study culture exists too, built around free mock tests and YouTube-based prep given how many aspirants are preparing for multiple similar exams at once.
Anshul's take: NTPC's 1.21 crore applicants sounds like the scariest number on this page, and it is the biggest pool. But rank it against seats and it lands mid-table, not at the top, which is exactly why raw applicant counts alone are a misleading way to judge an exam's real odds.
3
SSC CHSL
🔴 1 in 1,006
"34.55 lakh applicants for 3,437 seats, with barely two months between notification and exam."
🏛️ SSC🎓 12th pass, any stream📅 2024 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: SSC CHSL fills clerical and data-entry roles, Lower Division Clerk/Junior Secretariat Assistant, Data Entry Operator, Postal and Sorting Assistant, across central government departments. Any candidate who has passed Class 12 in any stream is eligible, age 18 to 27 (3-year OBC, 5-year SC/ST, up to 15-year PwBD relaxation). DEO Grade-A specifically prefers 12th pass with Mathematics. Its 12th-pass entry bar is the lowest of the three toughest-odds exams, which is part of why its applicant pool is this large.
📚 Source: SSC official notification 2024; final vacancy figures reported by Careers360
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Tier 1 (objective MCQ, online, reduced to 60 minutes from the earlier 75, qualifying/shortlisting only, negative marking applies). Tier 2: Objective MCQ plus a newly introduced descriptive paper (100 marks, pen-and-paper, 60 minutes) and a Skill Test or Typing Test for relevant posts. Final merit comes from Tier 2.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: The recently added descriptive paper in Tier 2 is a real difficulty shift, it tests written expression that Tier-1-only preparation doesn't build. The notification-to-exam gap is also unusually tight, around two months, which compresses prep time compared to most other exams on this page.
Exam calendar: Annual. Typical pattern: notification around April, Tier 1 between July and September, Tier 2 after the Tier 1 result.
Full Prep Timeline3 to 6 months is the standard window, commonly broken down as 2 months on concepts, 2 months on practice and mock tests, and a final month on revision and speed. Because the notification-to-exam window is tight, most successful candidates say ongoing preparation, rather than starting only after the notification drops, is what makes the timeline workable. Coaching is common for structure, but self-study accounts for a meaningful share of selections, especially for candidates who start early.
Anshul's take: CHSL gets treated as the "easy" SSC exam because the entry bar is just 12th pass. The odds don't agree, at 1 in 1,006 it's tighter than UPSC Civil Services. A lower entry bar pulls in a much bigger pool, and that's exactly what happened here.
4
UPSC Civil Services
🟡 1 in 984
"9.93 lakh applicants, 1,009 recommended, and it still ranks only 4th on pure odds."
🏛️ UPSC🎓 Graduate, any discipline📅 2024 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: UPSC CSE recruits into IAS, IPS, IFS and other central services. Any graduate in any discipline is eligible, including final-year students applying provisionally, age 21 to 32 as of 1 August of the exam year, with 5-year SC/ST, 3-year OBC and further relaxation for PwBD and ex-servicemen. Attempts are capped at 6 for General/EWS, 9 for OBC, unlimited up to the age limit for SC/ST.
📚 Source: UPSC official notification and final result 2024; application figures via Careers360
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Prelims: General Studies paper (history, polity, economy, geography, environment, science and technology, current affairs) plus CSAT (quantitative aptitude, reasoning, reading comprehension, qualifying only), both objective with negative marking. Mains: nine papers, including two qualifying language papers, an Essay paper, four General Studies papers, and two papers in an optional subject studied to postgraduate depth, all descriptive and handwritten. Personality Test/Interview: 275 marks. Final merit combines Mains (1,750 marks) with the Interview (275 marks); Prelims marks don't count toward the final merit.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: This is where UPSC's reputation comes from, and the odds ranking doesn't dispute it. The syllabus breadth (an optional subject alone is studied to postgraduate depth), the fully descriptive Mains, and the multi-year prep norm make this structurally one of the most demanding exams in the country, separate from its mid-table odds ranking. About 90% of successful candidates need more than one attempt, and in one specific past cycle (2015-16), only about 7.3% of recommended candidates cleared it on their first attempt, a single data point, not an evergreen rate, flagged here as such.
Exam calendar: Annual. Typical pattern: notification around February, Prelims around May/June, Mains around August/September, final result roughly 10 to 11 months after notification.
Full Prep TimelineThe average serious aspirant reports 2 to 4 years of preparation across attempts, with per-attempt focused study commonly cited at 8 to 18 months and 6 to 8 hours of daily study. Coaching in hubs like Delhi typically costs 1 to 3 lakh rupees a year, but roughly 30% of selected candidates report self-study as their primary method, meaning coaching is common and useful, not mandatory for clearing this exam.
Anshul's take: this is the number that surprises families the most. UPSC's reputation as India's toughest exam is earned on syllabus depth and the Mains writing load, both real. But on pure seats-versus-applicants math for 2024, it wasn't even the toughest exam on this specific page. That gap between "hardest to prepare for" and "worst raw odds" is the whole point of separating the two.
5
RBI Grade B
🟡 1 in 892
"120 seats, combined across three specialised streams, is the smallest seat count on this page."
Why it's here and who's eligible: RBI Grade B recruits Officers directly into the Reserve Bank of India, not a commercial bank, across General, DEPR (Department of Economic and Policy Research) and DSIM (Department of Statistics and Information Management) streams. Age 21 to 30 (32 with an MPhil, 34 with a PhD). General stream needs Graduation with 60% or a Postgraduate degree with 55%. DEPR and DSIM need a Master's specifically in Economics, Statistics or a quantitative field, with 55% marks, a meaningfully higher and narrower bar than the other seven exams here.
📚 Source: RBI official notification 2025; application figures via BankersAdda
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Phase I/Prelims (200 objective questions, qualifying only, marks don't count toward final merit): General Awareness, English Language, Reasoning, Numerical Ability. Phase II/Mains, General stream: Economic and Social Issues (ESI), Finance and Management (FM), and English, roughly 60 objective and 15 subjective questions. DEPR/DSIM streams sit three specialised papers instead: Economics objective, Economics descriptive, and English descriptive. Final stages: a Psychometric Test, then an Interview worth 75 marks. Final merit is Phase II plus Interview only.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: The smallest seat count of all eight exams makes this statistically one of the highest-stakes exams here. Both streams carry subjective, hand-written components in Mains, and DEPR/DSIM require postgraduate-level specialised knowledge that most other exams on this page don't ask for at all. A commonly cited success rate for this exam is roughly 0.1%, among the most selective figures in this entire ranking.
Exam calendar: Annual. Typical pattern: notification around June, Phase I around September, Phase II around October.
Full Prep TimelineFreshers typically report 10 to 12 months at 4 to 6 hours of daily study. Working professionals usually need 9 to 12 months around a job. Commerce or economics graduates with an existing base often manage 6 to 10 months, and candidates with a genuinely strong foundation have compressed this to 3 to 4 months. Self-study is increasingly viable given free mock series and past papers online, though coaching remains common for building the ESI/FM conceptual base from scratch, particularly for non-commerce graduates attempting the General stream.
Anshul's take: 120 seats swinging from 291 just two cycles earlier is the kind of volatility families don't factor in when they hear "RBI officer" and assume a stable, predictable path. The job is stable once you're in it. The seat count getting you there is not.
6
RRB Group D
🟡 1 in 334
"The largest applicant pool of all eight exams, 1.08 crore, but still only middling odds."
🚆 Railways🎓 10th pass or ITI/NAC📅 2025 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: RRB Group D fills Level 1 posts, Track Maintainer, Pointsman, Assistant roles across workshops and loco sheds. Eligibility is 10th pass, or an ITI/NCVT/SCVT certificate, or a National Apprenticeship Certificate, no degree needed at all, the lowest entry bar of all eight exams. Age 18 to 33 (36 for OBC, 38 for SC/ST). Candidates with an ITI in Fitter, Electrician or Welder qualify for specialised Assistant roles; plain 10th-pass candidates are mainly considered for Pointsman and Track Maintainer posts.
📚 Source: Railway Recruitment Boards CEN 08/2024; application data via Adda247/Testbook
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: A single Computer Based Test (100 objective questions, 90 minutes, negative marking one-third per wrong answer, conducted in 15 languages): Mathematics, General Intelligence & Reasoning, General Science, General Awareness including Current Affairs. Followed by a Physical Efficiency Test (PET), Document Verification, and a Medical Examination.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: Structurally the simplest exam on this page, one written stage, no Mains, no interview. But the PET is a genuine physical fitness bar, running and lifting standards, that eliminates candidates who clear the CBT comfortably but haven't trained physically, a difficulty axis none of the other seven exams have at all.
Exam calendar: Irregular, similar to NTPC, not annual. The previous major cycle before this one was 2018.
Full Prep Timeline4 to 6 months is the typical window for the written CBT, and preparation overlaps heavily with NTPC and SSC content given similar subjects. The part candidates most often start too late is PET-specific physical training, running and lifting standards need months of dedicated conditioning, not a last-minute effort. Coaching is mostly used for CBT content; PET training is usually self-managed or done through local physical trainers rather than exam-coaching institutes.
Anshul's take: the lowest eligibility bar on this entire page pulled in the single largest applicant pool, 1.08 crore people. That it still lands mid-table and not at the very top of the toughest-odds list is entirely down to how many seats, 32,438, were also on offer that cycle.
7
IBPS PO
🟢 1 in 237
"12.35 lakh applicants for 5,208 seats, spread across multiple public sector banks at once."
🏦 Banking (PSU, common recruitment)🎓 Graduate, any discipline📅 2025 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: IBPS PO is a single exam that places selected candidates across multiple public sector banks through common recruitment, rather than one bank hiring for itself. Any graduate in any discipline is eligible, no minimum percentage, basic computer knowledge required, age 20 to 30, fresh graduates need no prior work experience.
📚 Source: IBPS official notification 2025; application data reported by exam-prep aggregators
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Prelims (100 questions/100 marks, 60 minutes, qualifying only): English Language, Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning Ability. Mains (225 marks, recently expanded from 145 to 170 questions): Reasoning & Computer Aptitude, General/Economy/Banking Awareness, English Language, Data Analysis & Interpretation, plus a Descriptive Test. Final stage: a now-mandatory Personality Test/Interview. Final merit combines Mains and Interview in an 80:20 ratio.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: Structurally close to SBI PO, but spread across a larger combined seat count via multiple banks, which is part of why its odds are meaningfully easier. Negative marking of 0.25 per wrong answer applies at both stages. The recently made-compulsory Personality Test raises the bar slightly compared to older cycles.
Exam calendar: Annual. Typical pattern: notification around August, Prelims around October, Mains around November, the full selection process spans roughly 4 to 5 months.
Full Prep Timeline3 to 6 months is typical, with beginners advised to plan for 5 to 8 months. Candidates who already know the pattern from a prior attempt or from SBI PO prep have compressed this to 3 months. Self-study is well-supported by structured question banks and mock series, coaching remains popular mainly for accountability and detailed mock-test analysis rather than being a strict requirement.
Anshul's take: IBPS PO's vacancy count has swung from just over 3,000 to nearly 5,900 in three recent cycles. That kind of seat volatility across public sector banks moves the odds around more than most aspirants realise when they compare "IBPS vs SBI" as if the ratio were fixed.
8
SSC CGL
🟢 1 in 192
"34.83 lakh applicants, the largest application count on this page, against 18,174 seats."
🏛️ SSC🎓 Graduate, any discipline📅 2024 cycle
Why it's here and who's eligible: SSC CGL fills Group B and Group C posts across dozens of central government ministries and departments. Any graduate in any discipline is eligible for most posts, though specific posts like Junior Statistical Officer require Mathematics or Statistics specifically. Age limits vary by post, generally 18 to 32, with some posts capped at 27 and others at 30, calculated as of 1 August of the exam year. Final-year students can apply provisionally.
📚 Source: SSC official notification 2024; application figures via Careers360/SaralStudy
Full stage-by-stage syllabus & difficulty notes
Full syllabus, stage by stage: Tier 1 (100 questions/200 marks, objective MCQ, negative marking 0.5 per wrong answer, qualifying/shortlisting only): Reasoning, General Awareness, Quantitative Aptitude, English Comprehension. Tier 2, the actual main stage, varies by which post a candidate is targeting, and includes descriptive and skill-test components for specific posts. Final merit and post allocation come largely from Tier 2, plus Document Verification or Skill Tests where the post requires them.
Difficulty, as a separate axis from odds: The largest seat count on this page (18,174) is spread across 36+ distinct post types with very different competition levels within the same exam, an Income Tax Inspector or Assistant Section Officer post is contested far more heavily than lower-tier posts filled by the same exam. "Easiest odds overall" does not mean every post inside SSC CGL is easy to get.
Exam calendar: Annual. Typical pattern: notification around May, Tier 1 around August/September, Tier 2 around December.
Full Prep Timeline4 to 6 months is typical, commonly structured as 2 months on concepts, 2 months on practice, and a final month on revision and speed. Coaching is reported to cut preparation time by roughly 2 to 3 months for some aspirants, but self-study accounts for a meaningful share of selections every year, and is a well-established, viable route with the right resources and mock-test discipline.
Anshul's take: SSC CGL having the best odds on this page doesn't make it "the easy one" the way people assume. It means the exam absorbs the largest number of applicants across the widest spread of posts. Which specific post you're chasing inside SSC CGL changes the real competition far more than this headline ratio does.
🎯 Check Your Own Eligibility
Which of These 8 Are You Eligible For Right Now?
Tap your current highest qualification. Higher qualifications unlock more of these exams, they don't lock any out, so a graduate is eligible for all eight, while a 10th-pass candidate today is eligible for one.
Tap a qualification level above to see which of the 8 exams are open to you, the matching cards above will highlight too.
🎯
Eligible for several of these?That's a start, not an answer. Which one actually fits your strengths is a different question than which ones you can apply to. AptiGuide's free career test takes 5 minutes.
Same eight exams, same order, in one simple table. Full detail and sources are in the cards above.
Rank
Exam
Cycle
Applied
Seats
Odds
1
SBI PO
2025
8.39 lakh
600
1 in 1,398
2
RRB NTPC
2024–25
1.21 crore
11,558
1 in 1,053
3
SSC CHSL
2024
34.55 lakh
3,437
1 in 1,006
4
UPSC Civil Services
2024
9.93 lakh
1,009
1 in 984
5
RBI Grade B
2025
1.07 lakh
120
1 in 892
6
RRB Group D
2025
1.08 crore
32,438
1 in 334
7
IBPS PO
2025
12.35 lakh
5,208
1 in 237
8
SSC CGL
2024
34.83 lakh
18,174
1 in 192
💬 Patterns From Counselling Sessions
What Actually Comes Up When Families Discuss This
These are composite patterns Anshul sees repeatedly in counselling sessions, not any single identifiable student, shared to show how this ranking actually plays out in real decisions.
Pattern: The "safe bank job" assumption
A recurring pattern in sessions with commerce-stream families: SBI PO gets framed as the safe, sensible fallback next to something "risky" like UPSC. The 2025 numbers complicate that framing directly, SBI PO's odds that cycle were tighter than UPSC's. The honest conversation isn't "bank job instead of UPSC," it's "which specific cycle's numbers are you actually planning around, and are you checking them every year."
Pattern: Chasing the largest seat count
Another common pattern, especially with Railways and SSC aspirants: gravitating toward whichever exam has the biggest headline vacancy number that year, without checking the post-wise split inside it. SSC CGL's 18,174 seats sound reassuring until you're told which of the 36+ post types you're actually likely to get, and that detail changes the real competition far more than the exam-wide ratio does.
Pattern: Multi-year UPSC attempts without a checkpoint
The most common pattern with UPSC-focused families: committing to a 2 to 4 year runway without ever stopping to ask whether the daily reality of the work, reading dense policy material, writing under time pressure, sitting for a Mains that's almost entirely descriptive, actually matches how the student thinks and works. The odds and syllabus can be studied. Fit has to be checked separately.
🗂️ How This Ranking Was Built
Our Method, In Plain Words
Every rank on this page comes from one calculation only, total applicants divided by total seats, for the most recent fully completed cycle of each exam at the time of filming. Nothing about syllabus difficulty, number of stages, negative marking, or reputation was folded into the ranking itself, those are covered separately in each exam's card under "difficulty, as a separate axis from odds," precisely so the two questions never get mixed together. One honest note on comparability: these eight cycles aren't perfectly aligned in time, they run from 2024 to 2025 depending on the exam's own release schedule, so treat each ratio as "this exam's most recent completed number," not a single frozen snapshot of one calendar year. Two of the eight, SBI PO and RBI Grade B, had unusually small seat counts in the cycle used here compared to their own recent history, and that's flagged directly under those exams rather than left for the reader to discover later.
📋 Scope Check
8 Exams, Not Every Government Job
This ranking covers 8 specific national-level exams picked for the reel. It is not a list of every government job in India.
🟢 Other major categories not covered here: state-level PSC exams (like UPPSC, MPSC, BPSC), state police and SI recruitment, defence entries (NDA, CDS, AFCAT), PSU-specific recruitment (GATE-based PSU hiring), and judicial services exams, each with its own separate odds and syllabus worth their own full breakdown.
🔴 Don't assume these numbers transfer: a state-level exam with a similar name to one on this page can have completely different odds, since state-level applicant pools and seat counts don't track national exams at all.
🔍 Where AptiGuide Fits, and Honestly Doesn't
An Honest Gap, Not a Forced Link
AptiGuide does not currently run exam-specific coaching or a structured mentorship track for SBI PO, RBI Grade B, RRB NTPC, RRB Group D, SSC CGL, SSC CHSL, UPSC Civil Services, or IBPS PO. Naming that directly here, rather than forcing a link to something that doesn't exist, matters more than pretending otherwise.
What AptiGuide does offer sits one layer before all of this: the decision of whether a multi-month or multi-year government exam attempt is the right route for you at all, given how you actually think, work and handle sustained, high-stakes preparation. That's what the free career aptitude test and a 1:1 counselling session with Anshul are built for. Whether AptiGuide builds toward exam-specific mentorship for any of these eight in the future is Anshul's call to make, not something this page should promise on his behalf.
❓ Frequently Asked
Questions Viewers Actually Ask
Is this ranking about which government exam is hardest?
No. This ranking is only about one thing, how many people applied against how many seats existed, for the most recent completed cycle of each exam. It says nothing about syllabus depth, negative marking, or how many stages an exam has. A separate section on this page covers actual difficulty for each exam, and it does not always move in the same direction as the odds ranking.
Why does SBI PO have worse odds than UPSC Civil Services?
Because SBI PO 2025 had only 600 seats against 8.39 lakh applicants (1 in 1,398), while UPSC CSE 2024 recommended 1,009 candidates from 9.93 lakh applicants (1 in 984). SBI PO's seat count was unusually low that year, the lowest in five cycles. This is exactly why the ranking is odds-based and not reputation-based, the numbers genuinely surprise people.
Does a bigger applicant pool always mean tougher odds?
No, and RRB Group D proves it. It had the single largest applicant pool of all eight exams, 1.08 crore people, but ranks 6th out of 8 on odds because it also had 32,438 seats. Odds are a ratio, not a raw applicant count. RBI Grade B had a far smaller pool, 1.07 lakh, but worse odds because it had only 120 seats.
Will these odds stay the same next year?
No, and this page says so directly for two of the eight. SBI PO's 600 seats in 2025 was its lowest in five years, prior cycles offered up to 2,000. RBI Grade B's 120 seats in 2025 was well below its 2023 count of 291. Seat counts swing based on staffing needs and attrition, treat every number on this page as specific to its labeled cycle, not a permanent fact.
Is coaching necessary to clear these exams?
No single exam on this page requires coaching, and self-study accounts for a meaningful share of selections across all eight. Coaching is a common and legitimate choice because it adds structure, mock tests, and peer accountability, particularly for UPSC and RBI Grade B where the syllabus is large and partly postgraduate-level. Whether to use it is a study-style decision, not a requirement.
Does AptiGuide have a coaching program for these exams?
No, and this page says so honestly rather than forcing a link. AptiGuide does not currently run exam-specific coaching for SBI PO, RBI Grade B, RRB NTPC, RRB Group D, SSC CGL, SSC CHSL, UPSC Civil Services, or IBPS PO. What AptiGuide does offer is the decision layer before you commit years to one of these paths, career counselling and a free aptitude test to check whether this route actually fits you. That gap is named on this page as something Anshul may build toward, not hidden.
🚀 Your Next Step
The Odds Are the Same for Everyone. Your Fit Isn't.
Anshul is a career counsellor who works with students across India. This page answers one question honestly, what are the real odds and the real syllabus. It doesn't answer whether a specific multi-year attempt actually suits you. That's what the free test, the community, and a 1:1 session are for.
📚 Every fact on this page comes from one of these named sources:Sources: Official notifications and results from the State Bank of India (sbi.co.in) for SBI PO; the Reserve Bank of India (rbi.org.in) for RBI Grade B, General, DEPR and DSIM streams; the Railway Recruitment Boards (rrbapply.gov.in), CEN 05/2024, CEN 06/2024 and CEN 08/2024, for RRB NTPC and RRB Group D; the Staff Selection Commission (ssc.gov.in) for SSC CGL and SSC CHSL; the Union Public Service Commission (upsc.gov.in) for Civil Services Examination 2024 notification and final result; and the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (ibps.in) for IBPS PO. Applicant counts, which several of these authorities report through press statements rather than standalone datasets, are cross-checked against exam-prep aggregators and news outlets including BankersAdda, Adda247, CareerPower, Testbook, PW.live, Oliveboard, PracticeMock, Mahendras, Edutap, ixambee, Careers360, Shiksha, ClearIAS, TheIASHub and SaralStudy, current as of 2026, and flagged as aggregator-reported figures rather than official standalone datasets where that is the case. Preparation-duration and coaching-pattern figures are drawn from the same aggregator set and are presented as commonly reported patterns, not official statistics. Two figures, SBI PO's five-year vacancy trend and RBI Grade B's 2023 vacancy count, are cited specifically to support the volatility flags made on this page.
