Joint Entrance Exams for IITs from 2013: Govt

     New Delhi, September 10, 2012: For admission in to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), a joint entrance examination system would be introduced from 2013, Government of India said.

     Based on the discussions held amongst the various stakeholders, including those from the IIT system, it had been decided to hold a Joint Entrance Examination from the year 2013 for admission to the undergraduate programmes in engineering in two parts, JEE-MAIN and JEE-ADVANCED, the Government said.

     With a view to reducing the burden, in terms of time, finances and the stress caused in scheduling and preparing for multiple entrance examinations, on both, the students and parents, the Council of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) had, in its meeting on 14.09.2011, endorsed ‘in-principle’ the proposal of a Common Entrance Examination for admission to undergraduate programmes in Engineering, a government release said.

     Only the top 1,50,000 candidates (including all categories) based on the performance in JEE-MAIN would qualify to appear in the JEE Advanced examination, it added.

      Admission to IITs would be based only on category-wise All Indian Rank (AIR) in JEE-ADVANCED, subject to condition that such candidates are in the top 20 percentile of successful candidates in Class XII examination conducted by their Boards in applicable categories, the government clarified.

     Admission to NITs would be based on 40 per cent weightage for performance in Class XII Board marks normalized on percentile basis and the remainder 60 per cent weightage would be given for performance in JEE-MAIN and a combined AIR would be decided accordingly, it added.