According to data provided to The Indian Express by IIT Guwahati, the organising IIT for this year’s JEE, 22 of these 823 students ranked between 1 and 2,000 in the Common Rank List. According to data provided to The Indian Express by IIT Guwahati, the organising IIT for this year’s JEE, 22 of these 823 students ranked between 1 and 2,000 in the Common Rank List.

This year’s Joint Entrance Exam (Advanced) exams for entry into the IITs saw 823 SC students make it to the Common Rank List in which candidates across categories are given ranks. In other words, these students got a general rank without using the 50 per cent relaxation in marks they were entitled to.

According to data provided to The Indian Express by IIT Guwahati, the organising IIT for this year’s JEE, 22 of these 823 students ranked between 1 and 2,000 in the Common Rank List. To be included in the CRL, students irrespective of category need to score a minimum 10 per cent in each subject and an aggregate 20 per cent.

The 823 qualifiers are a marked increase from the 515 SC students who made the CRL last year. They account for 11.21 per cent of the total 7,339 SC students who had cleared JEE (Advanced), while the proportion of SC students who had got general ranks last year had been 20 per cent of the total 2,570 who had cleared the exam.

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“Until last year, SC students needed to score at least 3.5 per cent in each subject and an aggregate of 12.25 per cent to qualify for IITs. This year, the minimum aggregate percentage that SC students need to qualify has been brought down to 10,” said 2015 JEE chairperson Professor P V Balaji of IIT Bombay. “This explains why over 7,000 SC students qualified this year compared to 2,570 in 2015.”

The IITs have 10,500 seats. Of these, 7.5 per cent are reserved for STs, 15 per cent for SCs, 27 per cent for OBCs and the remaining 50.5 per cent for general category students.

“While these 823 students are eligible for the open seats [general category seats], it is likely that a majority of them will take admission under the SC category. This is because they have better chances of getting their preferred institute and course in the reserved seats. Unless someone from among these 823 has a rank in the top 20 [CRL], these students are unlikely to get into the college of their choice,” said Prof K V Krishna, chairman, JEE 2016, of IIT Guwahati.

“Also, not all the 7,000-plus SC students who have qualified will make it to the IITs – remember, there are only 10,500 seats in all. But they can get admission to the other engineering colleges in the country through their JEE (Main) ranks,” Krishna said.

Among ST students, 9,537 students appeared this year and 2,392 of them (25 per cent) qualified. Last year, 1,745 of 7,736 ST students (22.5 per cent) had cleared the exam. The cutoff for STs was the same as for SCs in both 2015 and 2016.

This year, 212 ST students have found a place in the common merit list as opposed to 108 last year. Of the 212, two had ranks between 1 and 2,000 in the CRL

The JEE (Advanced) 2016 results were declared on June 12.

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