40% weightage to class XII marks in JEE; new rule to impact 12 lakh students from 2013

NEW DELHI: For engineering aspirants, from now on how well one performs in all the five subjects in class XII boards will also matter. Scoring well in the Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE) — main will no longer suffice as merit list will be prepared based on 40% weightage in all the five subjects in class XII boards and 60% weightage to the entrance test. Which means students will also need to score well in the languages and elective subjects, along with mathematics and physics, in class XII boards to have a good ranking in the merit list. This new rule is likely to directly impact nearly 12 lakh engineering and architecture aspirants who will appear for the first JEE (main) in April 2013.

CBSE, as per ministry of human resource development’s direction and based on decision of the JEE apex board, will conduct the JEE (main), which is an entrance test for engineering, B Arch and B Planning courses at various national institutes of technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology , Delhi Technological University, other centrally funded technical institutes (CFTIs), other self financed and deemed universities.

Formerly known as All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), one of the major changes introduced in the JEE (main) is preparation of the merit list which will now give 40% weightage to the performance of the aspirant in his/ her class XII results. And the biggest shift is that all the five subjects including languages and electives, apart from mathematics and physics , will be taken in account.

“For the first time non-science subjects like language will be given weightage while preparing the final merit list. The compulsory subjects are mathematics, physics and one language. Two more electives will be considered in the five subjects while giving 40% weightage. For example if a student scores 375 out of 500 he/ she will get 30% and that will be added to weightage from the entrance test. So the final score will determine the rank of the candidate in the final merit list,” said chairman of CBSE, Vineet Joshi.

Till this year no weightage is given for the performance in class XII boards. But school authorities feel that this move will make students take the Board exam as well as non-engineering subjects more seriously , rather than just concentrating on the preparation for the entrance tests.