25K JEE Advanced Qualifiers Choose Not To Give IIT Exam, Know Why?

JEE Advanced 2015 exam to be held on May 24, 2015 is hailed as the most prestigious engineering entrance exam in India. From more than 13 lakh students who appeared for the JEE Main exam 2015, only 1,52, 401 made up to the list of IIT entrance exam and yet, as many as 25,000 JEE Advanced qualifiers chose not to register for the IIT exam.

In 2014, there were a total of 9,784 seats allotted to students on the basis of their JEE Advanced results. These include seats in 16 IITs as well as in Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad. Then too, about 25,000 students who had qualified for the IIT JEE exam had chose not to register for it.

 In 2015, it is expected that 20 IITs will be ready to accept students – adding 360 more IIT seats for the engineering aspirants. The new IITs will be – IIT Chhatisgarh, IIT Goa, IIT Palghat, and IIT Tirupati. With more seats in India, the chances to get an IIT seat have improved too but still there are many who have chose not to take that route.

Some of the main reasons that are being cited as students’ motives to stay away from JEE Advanced exam are:

• Former JEE Advanced Chairperson H C Gupta said, “Many students do not want to venture too far from home. For states which do not conduct their own engineering entrance exams anymore, children prefer to take admission to a good state engineering college on the basis of their JEE Main rank and feel contented.”
• H C Gupta also pointed out, “Many candidates who fill their category as ‘OBC’ make it to the JEE Advanced qualifiers in the category list. But they fail to furnish their certificates in time and hence, have to opt out of JEE Advanced exam.”
• An IIT professor added, “Students on the lower-end of JEE Advanced qualifying list often feel that they may not be able to qualify for IITs and hence, prefer to remain away from its admission test.”
• Candidates who do not fall within the category-wise top 20% of the board merit list in their Class 12 board examination or fail to score 75% aggregate marks (for General and OBC category candidates. SC, ST and PwD candidates need 70% marks) in Class 12 board exams are also ineligible for the JEE Advanced exams.