If everything thing goes as scheduled, admission to engineering and medical undergraduate courses from 2013 will be a much easier and hassle-free process. Instead of criss-crossing across the country to write scores of entrance tests conducted by various colleges, students will have to write only one test for medical and one for engineering.
However, those aspiring to study in the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) will have to sit for one extra exam to get access to these institutions.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has earlier this year approved a formula for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes in centrally funded institutions which advocated the preparation of merit lists on the basis of the performance of the 20 percentile of successful board-exam candidates in the proposed advance test.
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana have already announced their decision to adopt the government’s proposal for their State-run engineering colleges. States and private engineering colleges can also adopt the common entrance test but will have to give minimum 40 per cent weightage to Board results. Several deemed-to-be-universities have expressed their willingness to adopt the common national test.
After weeks and months of deliberations with the Indian Institutes of Technology, it was decided that the Joint Engineering Exam (Main), 2013 will be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE). This will be for admission to undergraduate engineering and technology courses at National Institutes of Technology (NIT), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi Technological University (DTU) and other Centrally-funded institutes. The JEE (Main) (Paper I of earlier AIEEE) will be held on April 7, 2013, both offline and online modes. For NITs, IIITs, DTU, Delhi and other CFTIs – merit list will consider 40 per cent weightage for Class XII Exam and 60 per cent to the performance in JEE (Main) Examination.
The admission to the undergraduate programmes at the Indian Institutes of Technology will be based on a two-tier test. The first test will be the JEE (Main) followed by the second test, called the JEE (Advanced) which will be held on June 2, 2013 (only offline). Only the top 1.5 lakh rankers of JEE (Main) will be eligible for JEE (Advanced).
Admissions to IITs will be based only on category wise All India Rank (AIR) in JEE (Advanced) subject to the condition that such candidates are in the top 20 percentile of successful candidates of their Boards in applicable categories.
NEET for medical courses
On the other hand, the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical courses will also be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on May 5 next year.
The first ever National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) will cater to admissions in all the government and private medical and dental colleges in the country on the basis of its merit list. Over 10 lakh students are expected to take this examination next year. The NEET 2013 Scores Common merit will be used for admissions to a total of 355 medical colleges in the country.
The CBSE will be conducting the NEET in English, Hindi and those regional languages in which the tests were held earlier. Besides, the reservation of seats in medical and dental colleges in respective categories will be as per applicable laws prevailing in states/Union Territories.
The syllabus for this examination has already been notified by the Medical Council of India (MCI) earlier and all admissions to MBBS and BDS will be held on the basis of the common merit list of this NEET for under-graduate courses.
