IITs to change top 20 percentile criteria for engineering admissions

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are planning to change the top 20 percentile criteria for admission to engineering courses in premier institutes.

Most of the students and parents are not happy with the criteria used by the IITs. It has receive immense criticism and prevents deserving candidates from getting admission in IITs. This criteria makes the students to focus on their class 12th performance.[Students files petition against CBSE JEE normalisation procedure]

According to the new proposal, the students who score above 75% of marks in class 12th board examination will be eligible for admission in IITs. In March 2014, CBSE had a cut-off of 83.2% and ISC, 85%. Only students with a score above these percentages were eligible for a seat in the IITs after clearing the JEE Advanced.

The Joint Admission Board (JAB) of IITs has decided to change the percentile criteria and they have now allowed the students who have cleared the JEE Advanced examination to get admission. [88% students passed JEE Advanced 2014 exam]

The board has decided to add some weightage to the marks scored by the candidates in the board examination. This new proposal will be discussed at length during the IIT council. The HRD Minister Smriti Irani is also expected to attend the meeting.

What is top 20 percentile:
Top 20 percentile criteria is used for process of selection of candidates for admission to engineering courses in IITs. By providing weightage to the candidates class 12th qualifying marks and JEE Main entrance examination scores to prepare the list of candidates to appear for the JEE Advanced examination through normalisation procedure. [What is normalisation procedure]

According to the officials, this year around 240 candidates failed to get admission in IITs, because of top percentile criteria. Some of the students who have scored 80% in board examination failed to get admission in IIT, since they did not meet the All India Rank (AIR) of JEE Advanced.