Tough test, Covid disruptions push IIT cutoff to lowest ever

MUMBAI: A general category candidate with 55 marks out of 360 is eligible for a seat in the IITs this year-which makes it the lowest cutoff ever; last year's cutoff was 63. The minimum percentage to the aggregate score also fell to 15.3 as compared to 17.5 in 2020.
A tough JEE Advanced test and difficult years of preparation during the pandemic probably led to this new low in the entrance results for the 23 IITs announced on Sunday.
The good news is that girls from the current batch outperformed those from last year with seven making it to the top 100 as compared to one last year.
The IIT-Delhi zone has the largest cohort of students in the first 500 ranks. IIT-Madras circle, incidentally home to the highest number of top 10 rankers, followed closely. IIT-Bombay zone, with three rankers in the top 10, had the third highest count of top 500 rankers.
JEE(A): No Mumbai student in top 10
This year too, not a single Mumbai student made it to the top 10 ranks in the entrance exam results for the 23 IITs announced on Sunday morning by IIT-Bombay, the organising institute.. This time around, all eyes were on Bengaluru boy Shishir R K, All India Rank (AIR) 1, from the IIT-Bombay zone who scored 314/360. The IIT Delhi zone also boasts the all India girl topper Tanishka Kabra (AIR 16). Both toppers are set on joining the computer science programme: Shishir and Tanishka will join the Powai campus. Both gave credit to their families for believing in them; “being consistent” was their secret sauce for cracking JEE (A).
Polu Lakshmi Sai Lohith Reddy is AIR 2 and Thomas Biju Cheeramvelil is AIR 3. The criterion for qualification is such that IITs include candidates at least two times of the available seats in each category. “And the qualifying numbers are in line with those of the previous years,” said organising JEE (A) chairman Suryanarayana Doolla. Subhasis Chaudhuri, director, IIT-B, said there has been a marginal reduction in cut-offs. “But I would not call it significantly different...I am happy that despite the tough exam, they did so well and that is a significant achievement,” he said. “We are happy that all students will join the respective IITs from day one as we have returned to normalcy after Covid.”
The minimum qualifying marks in each subject this year is 5. A total of 40,712 candidates qualified for JEE (A), of which 6,516 were girls. Of the 1.2 lakh or 78.4% of male candidates, 34,196 or 28% qualified. The number of female candidates qualifying stood at 6,516. The supernumerary seats for women across campuses have gradually increased from 14% in 2018 to 20% last year to encourage them to opt for IITs for undergraduate studies and to address their low participation in technical education. The additional 20% additional supernumerary seats will not have any effect on the existing seats.