Aspirants welcome admission process change
With the existing system, students from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were the worst hit as the 20 percentile cut-off remained at 90 per cent or above in the board exam marks. (Photo: DC/File)
Chennai: IIT-JEE aspirants have news to cheer about. A student had thus far to crack JEE (advanced) and should be in the top 20 percentile of his school board to be selected for IIT counselling. Now the IIT council, which meets on September 22, is likely to change the eligibility criteria from the existing top 20 percentile to top 20 percentile or 75 per cent marks in the Class XII board exam, whichever is lower.
Former deputy director and professor emeritus at IIT-M's ocean engineering department Prof V.G. Idichandy says that absolute marks vary from board to board and hence it could be argued that the students of a particular board might be at an advantage. The change is, perhaps, also introduced to avoid the confusion arising out of the procedure for calculating the percentile marks, he said.
Prof Idichandy hopes that the Joint Admission Board of the IITs in its collective wisdom had decided to recommend the change taking into account all possible scenarios that might obstruct natural justice to hardworking students of different boards, who take school education with all the seriousness it deserves.
With the existing system, students from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were the worst hit as the 20 percentile cut-off remained at 90 per cent or above in the board exam marks.
It may be recalled that an Andhra Pradesh student who cracked the JEE (advanced) was refused admission to IIT Bombay as he could not get into the top 20 percentile category. Similarly about 240 IIT aspirants had to go empty handed without an IIT admission despite clearing JEE (advanced).
IIT aspirants have welcomed the proposal stating that a student who scores 75 per cent and above marks in the board exam could get through the admission process.
"This has come as shot in the arm for students from Tamil Nadu. In the past even though we cleared JEE (advanced) we were not able to get into IITs as Tamil Nadu board had been generous in awarding centums to students, even in languages and we were not able to get into the top 20 percentile. This hampered our prospects to get a seat in IITs," K. Sriram, an IIT aspirant said.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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