JEE top rank students prefer IIT Bombay

Chennai: IIT Madras may have been ranked as the best engineering institute in the country two years in a row,  but more than 50 students among top 100 rank holders in JEE (Advanced) have preferred to join IIT Bombay this year.

The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) has announced the first round of seat allocation for the 22 IITs, along with 80-odd other central government-funded technical institutes on Wednesday. Many toppers in general category from first rank 1 to 62 chose the B Tech - Computer Science Engineering at IIT Bombay. IIT Delhi and IIT Madras also had students from the top 100 rank holders. IIT Delhi's highest rank was 3 and IIT Madras highest rank was 26.

Arjun Bharat (AIR 26) who had scored 318 out of 366 marks chose Computer Science Engineering at IIT Madras.

"It has been a custom that top 50 rank holders choosing Computer Science Engineering in IIT Bombay. But there is little difference between the five old IITs. So, I chose to join IIT Madras," Arjun Bharat said. "The institution has consecutively secured the top rank among the engineering institutions in the country. My house is also very nearby.” he reasoned.

Another JEE topper Pranav Ramakrishna (AIR 136) said he got his first preference of computer science engineering in IIT Madras.

“This year 1.5 lakh candidates filled their preferred choices. Out of these, 36,114 candidates got seats in the first round across 97 institutes like IITs, NITs. Around 11,000 candidates got se-ats in IITs," said Prem B Bisht, organising Chairman,  JEE (Ad-vanced)-2017

"Of 11,000 candidat-es, 994 female candidates were shortlisted in the first round for admission in various IITs," he added.

This year the students' choices hovered around whopping 1.7 crores. Around 500 candidates who appeared for JEE (Advanced) exam, 2 students were offered seats in IITs.