Madhav Kumar, who took a drop with a vision to get into his dream engineering college last year, was disheartened when the National Testing Agency (NTA) decide to reinstate the 75 per cent eligibility criteria for admissions into top engineering colleges like NITs and IITs.
“I am a dropper and last year, I was getting into an NIT with a 92 percentile score but I decided to repeat the year for a better NIT or IIT college next year. This year I scored 94.05 percentile in the JEE main but since the NTA has reinstated 75% criteria this year, I cannot get a good college as I had 71% in the CBSE board examination,” Madhav, a JEE aspirant from Bihar.
Madhav explained that he focused solely on the JEE preparation as the eligibility criteria that said that only students with 75 per cent or above score in class XII can get into IITs and NITs had been removed during the pandemic.
“Class XII preparation and JEE preparation have very different standards. As we knew that class XII score would not be considered, many students gave their all for JEE preparation and could not score so well on boards,” Madhav explains.
Several other repeaters are now facing the same issue as the eligibility criteria have been reinstated by the NTA.
Joydeep Acharya, another aspirant from Chhattisgarh, scored 97.51 percentile in the JEE Main this year however had less than 75 per cent in his board examination.
“Covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on our studies. I was not able to score well in board exams because of online classes and other reasons. If NTA had informed us earlier, we could have applied for an improvement exam in CBSE because if a student can score well in JEE Main, he can also score well in class XII. But they informed in December 2022. Only the droppers understand how difficult it is to prepare for JEE Main and it is disheartening that we will not be able to get admission to our dream college even after so many efforts,” he expressed.
After receiving backlash from activists and students, the NTA relaxed the 75 per cent criteria by adding that the students featuring in the top 20 percentile in their respective boards will also be eligible for admissions.
However, students have pointed out that most state boards do not have any data for top-percentile candidates.
“I passed out of Bihar board in 2022 with a 67 per cent score. I did not perform well in JEE Main last year and decided to take a drop. This year also I could not perform well in the January attempt but when I saw that the 75 per cent criteria is being challenged in Mumbai High Court, I decided to work harder and give it a second chance. On the second attempt, I got 95.75 percentile. Now that the Mumbai HC has refused to relax the criteria, I am left with no options. I can get other colleges but NITs and IITs provide a kind of ecosystem that other institutes do not. Colleges in Bihar are not so good,” said Sonu Kumar, another JEE aspirant.
Due to tough competition in JEE Main, students who score above the 90 percentile too are often unable to secure a seat in NITs or IITs of their choice. One such student is Ajay Sawandkar from Mumbai who could not get into his dream college despite scoring above the 94 percentile last year.
“I was getting seats in a few NITs but they were not the ones I wanted. I decided to take a drop hoping to get a better score this year. I have scored 97.7 percentile now but now I am uncertain about the future. Ideally, the criteria shouldn’t be there for the students who were exempted last year,” said Ajay.
