New IIT JEE formula: class XII and JEE-advanced scores to count

Despite Union Minister Kapil Sibal not attending the the meeting of the IIT Council held today, the directors of the IITs have reportedly  decided on a compromise formula under which only the top 20 percent of students from each educational board will be allowed to give the preliminary IIT entrance exam. The members of the IIT council, which consist of the directors of each of the IITs and chairmen of each of the institutes, met in New Delhi to decide on how to carry out the entrace exam for the 2013 course. [caption id=“attachment_359349” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Only the top 20 percent from each education board would be eligible to write the IIT entrance exam. AFP”]  [/caption] “Admissions to IITs will be based only on the JEE advanced scores,“MM Sharma, Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Chennai told reporters. The entire JEE process will consist of two exams - main and advanced - to be held on separate days, CNN IBN reported. While the main exam will be conducted by the CBSE, the advanced exam that is likely to take place about a month later will be conducted by the IITs. However, only the top 1.5 lakh students from the main exam merit list can take the advanced entrance exam. To be eligible for the IIT merit list, the score of the advanced test as well and the class XII score will be taken into account. Students will need to be in the top top 20 percentile of  their educational board to qualify for the institutes. “The meeting was successful and unanimous agreement to proceed with admission scheme as recommended by joint admission board taken. Kanpur faculty members and other senates gave full support to this proposal. There is no compromise. It is just a single proposal with all steps clearly spelt out. All doubts have been sorted,” said IIT-Kanpur Council member G Anandkrishnan told CNN IBN. The IITs did not have any objections to the new scheme being implemented from 2013. Even the directors of insititutes like IIT Delhi and Kanpur, which had initially threatened to conduct their own entrance exam, did not oppose the new scheme. However, under this new scheme it isn’t clear how other engineering institutes in the country would choose their students based on the IIT-JEE and might not make it possible for the minister to push forward his ‘one nation, one exam’  plan. It also would not be a significant departure from the existing IIT entrance exam under which students need to write two exams to qualify for the institutes. However, presently students don’t have to be in the top 20 percent of their educational board and it looks like the new entrance exam formula will only increase the pressure on those who are trying for admission to the institutes.