Chennai: The number of Tamil Nadu state board students qualified to get into IITs through JEE (advanced) is less this year too. Among the 451 candidates who qualified in JEE (advanced), only 33 were from Tamil Nadu state board system and the rest were from CBSE and ICSE. As per data provided by JEE office at IIT Madras, 2,815 IIT aspirants took the test from Tamil Nadu. Of these 1,770 students were from Tamil Nadu state board while the rest were from CBSE.
Comparing the performance to other states, a faculty member from IIT said the state government sin Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had integrated JEE preparations in the school education system, which reflects in their results. “As there are abundant number of seats in private engineering colleges across Tamil Nadu most of the students don’t want to work hard to get into IITs,” the faculty member said.
Asked about the trend, eminent academician Dr S.S. Rajagopalan said the all India entrance examinations are not all-embracing, but only a small percentage of eligible students who have the opportunity and the wherewithal to undertake specialised coaching participate in them. “They are in no way a reflection on the standards in schools. They act as filters rather than a tool to identify natural talent, as can be seen that only 0.6 per cent alone passed the All India Pre-Medical Entrance Test.
The question paper for these tests widely differ from the public examination papers and to take up those tests one needs specialised coaching. The state board performance is what matters for the large majority as a gateway to higher education,” he said. Prof S. Sundar, chairman, JEE (advanced), IIT-Madras zone, said that 16.02 per cent of students from those who appeared for the test from Tamil Nadu as a single state qualified to take up counselling for IIT admission whereas the percentage of students in combined Andhra Pradesh (Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) stands at 18.18 per cent.
JEE (advanced) toppers prefer electrical or computer science engineering
Several students from Chennai who scored top marks in JEE (advanced) prefer to join electrical or computer science engineering at the IITs in Bombay and Madras. Arpit Singh, who scored 341 of 504 marks to secure 169 All India rank from Chettinad Vidyashram school in the city, wants to take electrical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. As he is passionate about mobile phones and automobiles he wishes to pursue electrical engineering.
“I want to work for companies like Apple and Mercedes where I can employ my skills in combing electrical and automobile,” he said. V. Hari Prasad with a score of 329 of 504 stood 257 in the All India ranking, likes to join computer science in IIT Bombay as according to him, the last year JEE (advanced) country topper got admitted in IIT-B.
“As last year’s topper joined IIT-B, I think it is good for computer science. If I don’t get into Bombay I will prefer electrical engineering. When it comes to the institute my second choice is IIT-Madras,” he said. Pointing out that he had witnessed the trend in the past too, Mr R.Rajan, student mentor and regional manager at FIITJEE, Chennai said IIT-Bombay had been the most preferred choice among IIT aspirants that too electrical and computer science. “Students look at several parameters like ranking of the institute before they decide their option,” he said.
