For students aspiring to get into Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), CBSE’s class XII results this year are important, as for the first time, weightage is being given to these scores to determine admission.
A student has to be in the top 20 percentile of CBSE board exam scorers to be eligible to apply to IITs. Up until last year, a student only had to have scores of 60 per cent or above. For NITs, the school board scores will form 40 per cent of the admission criteria and performance in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) will account for the rest.
However, relieved IIT aspirants said, the cut-offs for the JEE, which were announced on Monday — shortly after CBSE declared its class XII results — are relatively better than last year’s.
The top 20 percentile cut-off for the JEE is 391 for general categories this year. For other backward classes (OBCs) it is 389, for scheduled castes 350, and 338 for scheduled tribes, officials said.
Ramesh Nitin, a student who scored 450, said he was thankful the cut-off was reasonable. “When we first found out that we had to be in the top 20 percentile, it was a scary prospect. We weren’t sure how much we needed to score to qualify for admission. But 391 is quite attainable as it is only around 78 per cent,” he said.
“A cut-off of 391 is not at all difficult to obtain. Most students, especially IIT aspirants, would have got a score of over 450,” said K.K. Anand, a JEE trainer.
