20-percentile rule to stay for IIT-2014 entrance test

The much debated percentile system that determines a candidate’s eligibility for admissions to the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will stay as is for the 2014 exam.

In a recently held meeting members of the IITs' Joint Admission Board (JAB) jointly resolved to conduct the JEE-Advanced as it was in 2013. The exam, however, might be advanced by a week and be conducted on May 25.

The JAB meeting was held to review the 2013 exam and to propose any changes, if need be. While the new policy, introduced in 2013, requires students to clear the two-tier exam—JEE-Main and JEE-Advanced, successful candidates also have to be among the top-20 percentile scorers in Class XII exams of their respective boards. A proposal to relax the 20 percentile cut-off was under consideration.

The JAB had met to discuss primarily the eligibility norms, the exam date and its format. The IIT Council, which will meet on September 3, will have to pass the JAB's Sunday resolution. The next JAB meeting will be held on September 15.

The IITs were also considering shortlisting the top two lakh candidates, instead of 1.5 lakh, from the JEE-Main. However, that too will not change. "There is no need to shortlist more students as at the end only around 10,000 actually get selected. The rest get disqualified," said the official. There will not be any change in the pattern of the test too. "Most of the members felt we should allow the current multiple choice questions to continue without changes at least for the 2014 exam. The 2013 exam was conducted well on schedule," said JEE-Advanced 2013 chairman HC Gupta from IIT-Delhi. IIT-Kharagpur will be conducting the 2014 exam.