Qualifying criteria lowered this year, more students to aim for IITs

With the cut-offs in the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced (JEE Advanced) lowered across categories, more students have become eligible for admissions to premier

With the cut-offs in the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced (JEE Advanced) lowered across categories, more students have become eligible for admissions to premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) this year. Registrations to Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) 2020 begin at 10am Tuesday, and the first seat allotment list will be released on October 17, 2020.

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As per information shared by IIT-Delhi, the organising institute for 2020, the total number of students who qualified for admissions this year stands at 43,204 as compared to 38,705 students who qualified for admissions last year.

The cut-off for the general category has been reduced to 17.5% from last year’s 25%, while that for scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) is 8.75%, down from last year’s 12.5%. The qualifying score for the general-EWS and OBC-NCL categories is at 15.75% this year, lower than the 22.5% last year.

This year, the total intake capacity of 23 IITs has risen by 2,500 seats. From 13,583 last year, the intake capacity stands at 16,053 this year. In 2018, the intake capacity across IITs stood at 11,279.

Last year too, the qualifying criteria was lowered by 5-10% in every category. A senior official from Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) 2019 has confirmed that the reason behind lowering cut-offs in 2019 was a request from the Centre to qualify at least twice the number of students than the number of seats. “Every year seats in IITs go vacant even after seven-seat allocation rounds, so for the past two years, IITs have been trying to include more students in the seat allocation rounds to give more students a chance at vying for the same seat,” said the official on condition of anonymity.

In a press statement released on Monday, IIT -Delhi confirmed that of the 1.5 lakh students who appeared for the exam on September 27, around 43,204 had qualified. This includes 18,028 in the general/open category, 9,349 in the other backward class-non creamy layer (OBC-NCL) category, 5,140 in general economically weaker section (GEN-EWS) category, 7,869 and 2,818 in scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) categories respectively.

Of the total students who qualified for the exam, 36,497 are male candidates and 6,707 are female candidates.

“Criteria for inclusion in the rank list depends on the aggregate marks of a student calculated on the basis of marks obtained in mathematics, physics and chemistry. Candidates have to satisfy the subject-wise as well as the aggregate qualifying marks to be included in a rank list,” highlighted the statement released by IIT-Delhi on Monday.