UPSC Optional Subject List: Best Optional Subjects for UPSC IAS 2025

Choosing the Best Optional Subject for UPSC will help the aspirants to score well in the exam. UPSC allows candidates to choose one optional subject from a diverse range of options, enabling them to specialize in an area of their interest or expertise. Selecting the right optional subject for UPSC plays a significant role in shaping an aspirant's strategy and performance in the examination.

Here, we provide the complete list of 48 UPSC optional subjects to help candidates make informed decisions regarding their UPSC preparation. Additionally, we'll explore how to determine the best optional subject for the UPSC CSE exam by looking at the previous year trends. So, let's begin!

UPSC Optional Subject List 2025 [48 Subjects]

Below is the list of 48 UPSC Optional Subjects that you can choose from.

• Agriculture
• Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science
• Anthropology
• Botany
• Chemistry
• Civil Engineering
• Commerce and Accountancy
• Economics
• Electrical Engineering
• Geography
• Geology
• History
• Law
• Management
• Mathematics
• Mechanical Engineering
• Medical Science
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Political Science and International Relations
• Psychology
• Public Administration
• Sociology
• Statistics
• Zoology
• Assamese
• Bengali
• Bodo
• Dogri
• Gujarati
• Hindi
• Kannada
• Kashmiri
• Konkani
• Maithili
• Malayalam
• Manipuri
• Marathi
• Nepali
• Odia
• Punjabi
• Sanskrit
• Santhali
• Sindhi
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Urdu
• English

Choosing the best optional subject for the UPSC CSE exam can greatly impact your performance. We'll now delve into strategies and considerations to help you make this crucial decision.

Which is the Best Optional Subject for UPSC Mains 2025?

Selecting the optimal optional subject for UPSC Mains 2025 is crucial as it accounts for a total of 500 marks out of 1750 marks of UPSC Exam influencing everything, from final rankings to final services allocation. As per recent trends, Political Science & International Relations (PSIR), Sociology, and Anthropology have emerged as the top choices of UPSC Optional Subjects among successful candidates. 

• In the 2024 UPSC exam, both AIR 1 Shakti Dubey and AIR 2 Harshita Goyal opted for PSIR, despite their academic backgrounds in Biochemistry and Commerce, respectively.
• Sociology and Anthropology are also favored for their concise syllabi and substantial overlap with General Studies papers, enhancing preparation efficiency.
• Success rates further underscore these preferences; for instance, in 2020, Philosophy had a success rate of 21.57%, while PSIR and Anthropology had rates of 18.54% and 18.33%, respectively.

Ultimately, the best optional subject for UPSC is based on an aspirant's interest, academic background, and the availability of resources. All aspirants must choose their Mains Optional Subject strategically to leverage their knowledge to get a strategic advantage in the exam. 

The ideal UPSC optional subject for you should align with your interests, academic background, and offer advantages like a manageable syllabus, overlap with General Studies (GS) papers, and a strong success rate as per previous years’ UPSC Result trends. Based on recent trends, success rates, and choices of top rankers, the following are the top 10 optional subjects for UPSC 2025 –

Go through the detailed UPSC Syllabus 2025 to find out which is the right optional subject for you!

Scoring Optional Subject in UPSC Mains Exam

UPSC Toppers have consistently chosen the optional subjects with high scoring potential, due to their overlap with the UPSC Prelims Syllabus as well as their intersection with Current Affairs. Below is a table highlighting some of the most popular optional subjects by their scoring potential, their overlap with other papers, and the number of aspirants who chose them in the past few years –

This data indicates that subjects like Geography and History are among the ones with highest scoring potential among other optional subjects due to their extensive overlap with the General Studies papers, which can streamline preparation. Sociology and Political Science also offer significant advantages, especially for aspirants with backgrounds in humanities or social sciences. Philosophy, while chosen by fewer candidates, has a concise syllabus and overlaps with the Ethics paper. Accounting for these factors can help aspirants choose the best optional subject for UPSC as per their interests and strengths. 

How to Choose the Best UPSC Optional Subject For UPSC?

Choosing the best optional subject for UPSC Civil Services proves to be important. The optional subject helps increase the candidate’s confidence in scoring high marks on the exam. There are certain factors that help decide the best optional subject for the UPSC Mains exam. Before choosing a subject, try to answer the following questions.

• How extensive is the syllabus of the optional subject that you wish to choose?
• How much time do you have in hand for the preparation?
• How much knowledge of the subject do you have prior, at the graduate level?
• What portion of the syllabus overlaps with the General Studies part?
• Are the essential learning resources easily accessible?
• Have you gone through the trends of marks, the difficulty level and the previous year papers of the subject?
• Are you really interested and willing to learn the subject?

Once you arrive at the answers to these questions, you can make an individual choice for choosing your preferred optional subject for the UPSC exam.

Points To Remember While Choosing the UPSC Optional Subject

• Draw up a list of 4-5 subjects that you feel you have an interest in.
• Go through the UPSC syllabus for each of the subjects and highlight the topics you think you know something about.
• Have a look at the previous year papers of the subjects in your list. Highlight the questions you are familiar with and measure the knowledge you have to answer them. This shows your compatibility with a particular subject.
• Carry out research on the availability of training material for a particular subject.
• If you are an engineering student and are good at your engineering subjects, choosing that as an optional subject will reduce the burden of preparing a new subject from scratch.
• Literature subjects have performed well in UPSC all these years. So, if you are a person having good command over your native language, it would be wiser to choose that as your optional subject.

Optional Subjects of UPSC Toppers [2024-2000]

The table below provides the list of Optional Subjects Selected by UPSC Toppers over the last 24 years.

Also check – UPSC Toppers Optional Subjects With Marks

Best Optional Subjects For UPSC & their Success Rates

Based on the analysis carried out on the optional subjects having high success rates in UPSC Mains 2019, it is clear that Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science a list of the Best Optional Subject for the UPSC IAS Mains Exam has been given below.

UPSC Optional Subject List & Syllabus 2025

The UPSC Optional Subject Syllabus 2025 comprises two papers—Paper VI and Paper VII—each carrying 250 marks, totaling 500 marks. Knowing the optional subjects syllabus is important before choosing the most apt optional subject. Selecting an optional subject that aligns with one's academic background and interests can increase preparation efficiency and performance in the examination –

Summing Up

• Based on the data, it is quite evident that there are certain subjects which are chosen by a large number of aspirants consistently over the years.
• The popularity of these subjects is primarily owed to the fact that there is a significant amount of syllabus overlap with the GS subjects. We can tell this conclusively because History, Geography, Political Science, International Relations and Sociology are among the optional subjects opted for the IAS Exam by a large number of candidates consistently.
• However, the success rates of these optional subjects are not consistent enough for drawing any inferences on the feasibility of choosing these as the best optional subjects for UPSC.

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