Hello Pavan ,

This is SImran from Careers 360, I hope to solve your query,

The exact number would be hard to say , though it is incremental every year as  more and more applicants are getting aware about this exam and trying to apply for the same, and qualify. The number which was estimated in 2016 was 15k applications. Hence, you can estimate an average of 1500-2000 more applications increase every year.

That is a lot of students are applying for PESSAT and qualifying rate is neccesarily high but top candidates are considered and taken up by highly reputed colleges, Ihope this helps.

All the best