A total of 1,57,554 candidates — 1,23,928 boys and 33,626 girls — will be appearing for VIT Engineering Entrance Examination (VITEEE)-2010 in 231 centres in 94 cities, 91 of them in India and three abroad, on April 17.
Last year, 1.47 lakh candidates took the examination. While VITEEE was held overseas for the first time last year in Dubai, it will be held in two more overseas cities this year — Riyadh and Singapore.
Giving this information to newspersons here on Wednesday, G. Viswanathan, chancellor and president of VIT University; Shankar Viswanathan, vice-president (administration); G.V. Sampath, vice-president (operations) and D.P. Kothari, Vice-Chancellor, said the largest number of 28,181 candidates would be appearing for the examination in Andhra Pradesh, followed by 25,653 in Uttar Pradesh, 16,595 in Bihar, 13,874 in New Delhi, 13,248 in Rajasthan and 9,499 in Tamil Nadu.
A total of 3,922 candidates would be taking the examination in Chennai and 2,027 in Vellore. In Tamil Nadu, the VITEEE would be held in seven cities — Vellore, Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Salem and Tirunelveli.
Mr. Viswanathan said the entrance examination was being held to fill 3000 seats in 13 B.Tech. programmes in the VIT University, which includes 1000 seats on the VIT Chennai campus to be opened in the forthcoming academic year.
A new course, B.Tech. in Automotive Engineering, would be started on the main campus in Vellore in collaboration with the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), Pune from the forthcoming academic year, with an intake of 60 students. Students joining this course would study three years in Vellore and one year in Pune.
Foreign students and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) students would be admitted up to a maximum of 15% of the total number of seats. The NRI students have the option of joining undergraduate programmes in VIT either directly under the foreign students' quota or on the basis of merit by appearing for VITEEE, he said.
Scholarships
The Chancellor said this year, VIT would be providing IGNITE Scholarships in three categories, totally worth Rs.5 crore. In the first category, 100% tuition fee waiver would be provided for the top three higher secondary examination rank holders in each State, totally numbering about 200 students. In the second category, 100% tuition fee waiver would be provided for the top 50 VITEEE students, and in the third category, 50% tuition fee waiver for students ranked 51 to 100 in VITEEE.
Besides, the VIT would be providing 100% tuition fee waiver and 100% exemption from hostel and mess fees to the district toppers (one boy and one girl each) in all the districts of Tamil Nadu from among those who are studying in government schools in rural areas and appearing for VITEEE-2010 under the STARS (Support The Advancement of Rural Students) Scheme.
Mr. Sampath said that the results of VITEEE would be published on the following websites on or before May 8: www.vit.ac.in, www.schools9.com, www.globalinfowings.com, www.indiaresults.com and www.minglebox.com.
Counselling would be held for the candidates who obtained the first 13,000 ranks from June 2 to 14 as per the following schedule:
Ranks 1-3000: June 2; ranks 3001-5000: June 4; ranks 5001-7000: June 7; ranks 7001-9000: June 9; ranks 9001-11,000: June 11; ranks 11,001-13,000: June 14. Candidates appearing for the counselling could opt for joining the course of their choice either on the main campus in Vellore or on the Chennai campus, Mr. Viswanathan said.
