IITs attract 50,000 fewer aspirants this year
While the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are gearing up for expansion, the number of students aspiring to get into these hallowed institutions has dropped dramatically this year.
By Hemali Chhapia, TNN |
MUMBAI: While the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are gearing up for expansion, the number of students aspiring to get into these hallowed institutions has dropped dramatically this year. There is a drop of almost 50,000 applications for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) this year as against the nearly three lakh students who competed for 4,078 seats last year.
According to data from IIT-Bombay, the nodal IIT co-ordinating JEE 2007, this year 2.52 lakh students will take the entrance exam across seven centres in the country on April 8. This includes 120 foreign students.
Several deans at IIT have blamed the fall in applications on the fact that students now have only two chances to clear the entrance exam, whereas earlier there was no cap on the number of attempts.
With the fall in applicants, 55 students will vie for every precious IIT seat this year, a slump from last year when 74 students battled it out for every slot. Despite the increase in the number of seats and fall in applicants, the competition is expected to be tough when compared to renowned varsities like Harvard and MIT where the ratio is eight students competing for a seat.
Although the IITs have not chalked out their seat expansion plans for this year, officials in the JEE office said the total number of seats in all the IITs put together would be a little over 4,600.
According to data from IIT-Bombay, the nodal IIT co-ordinating JEE 2007, this year 2.52 lakh students will take the entrance exam across seven centres in the country on April 8. This includes 120 foreign students.
Several deans at IIT have blamed the fall in applications on the fact that students now have only two chances to clear the entrance exam, whereas earlier there was no cap on the number of attempts.
With the fall in applicants, 55 students will vie for every precious IIT seat this year, a slump from last year when 74 students battled it out for every slot. Despite the increase in the number of seats and fall in applicants, the competition is expected to be tough when compared to renowned varsities like Harvard and MIT where the ratio is eight students competing for a seat.
Although the IITs have not chalked out their seat expansion plans for this year, officials in the JEE office said the total number of seats in all the IITs put together would be a little over 4,600.
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