AP Students Lose IIT Seats Due to Increased Cut-Off Marks and Normalization Process

T Sairam is a brilliant student and has been aspiring to join B Tech in IIT since his ninth class. Three years of hard work bore fruit and he got through in JEE Advanced and got a rank of 2003 in the Common Merit List (CML). He applied online for admission and the IIT-Madras confirmed his seat in Chemical Engineering and asked him to appear for personal interview on July 8. Now, suddenly, he is on the brink of losing the seat after the latest increase in cut-off mark by IIT Delhi. While the earlier cut off mark was 457, it has now changed to 487.

After the normalization process Sairam's cut-off mark was 484 which is three marks less than the mark announced by IIT Delhi. So, in all probability, he is losing the admission just by three marks. Had the earlier cut-off mark was considered, he would have joined IIT.

A crest-fallen Sairam, ran from pillar to post for justice, sought the help of his college (Narayana) management, government officials and others but of no avail. Narrating his agony along with two other students - Shruti and Aarti - in a live show organized by HMTV on Saturday, Sairam said he came to know only at the eleventh hour about this through websites and news dailies. "I did not join in BITS Pilani on the pretext of getting admission in IIT. Now, both are lost. I don't know what to do" he said with tears falling on his cheek.

Sairam is one among hundreds of such rankers from Andhra Pradesh who have lost the chance of getting into the most prestigious tech institutes of the land - IITs. The students worked hard, got good marks in Inter, achieved a rank but could not get it on the ground that their counterparts in other states enjoy a lesser cut-off mark.

It may be recalled that under the new pattern, those who qualify in the Jee Advanced shall be in the top 20 percentile of the Board exam. As hundreds of students are in the top 20 percentile, a cut-off mark was mentioned. To bring parity with the students of all Boards of states, a formula was evolved and a cut-off mark was set for each state. Huge variation in cut-off marks among states led to a controversy and the students from AP were the maximum losers. Cut-off mark for Tripura is 268 (53%) whereas for AP, it is 487 (91.89%).The students of Assam, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Nagaland can get just between 283- 299 whereas the students of south Indian states shall get more than 91%. The pattern evolved for admission into NITs, IIITs and CFTIs through Jee Mains has also dealt a blow to AP students.

while preparing the ranks, CBSE has taken 60% marks of Jee Mains and 40% weightage marks of qualifying exam (Intermediate). Shruti, who studied at Narayana College, Nallakunta, has found fault with this system. "I got 255 marks whereas my friend who got less marks in Jee and more marks in qualifying exam got a better rank. My rank, which should be around 2800 has slipped to 7000 because of this system. More than 12 lakh students have been appearing for Jee and normalization cannot be achieved through an impugned formula" she argued.

Another girl, Aarti, who did her Intermediate at Narayana College in Kukatpally, concurred with her view saying that when Board marks are enough for getting a seat where is the need for an entrance. "The distribution is totally uneven. My rank was dropped to 22000 because I got just 502 marks in Board exams. The preference given to IPE shall be reduced. Moreover, we were informed about the formula in May and we hardly get time to prepare ourselves for it" she explained.

The General Secretary of the Government Junior College Lecturers Association has lambasted the government for "failing to come to the rescue of the hapless students. It is a national issue. The normalization procedure is discriminatory. I suspect a conspiracy behind this as many of our students have been excelling in national entrance examinations. Our MPs shall raise this issue in Parliament" he said.