Admission AIEEE: Tough Competition For Open Category

Competition for admission is the toughest in the open category seats in the AIEEE online counselling and admission this year. Against 3,99,161 students who have qualified to apply for online counselling, 2,02,085 students are from open category, followed by 1,10,621 students from backward classes, 63,669 from SC and 22,786 from ST. All these students are vying for the 34,000-odd seats on offer in 30 NITs, 5 IIITs, 13 CFIs and 23 SFIs. Sandeep Sancheti, director, NITK who is also the chairman of Central Counselling Board AIEEE 2011 said overall performance of students in AIEEE this year has been comparatively better compared to last year. This year, both the number of institutions and offered seats are higher compared to last year. Yet the competition for these seats, especially the NITs, IIITs, and centrally funded institutions remains higher due to quality of education imparted there.

Exemplifying the nature of competition in the open or merit category, Sandeep said 2,02,085 out of total eligible 3,99,161 candidates are placed in this category. If one considers the scenario for open seats available in 30 NITs, students would have to vie for 3813 all India quota seats and equal number of home state quota seats. The seat matrix also specifies the open category seats available in IIITs, the centrally and self-financial institutions, he noted.

Referring to cut off for engineering/architecture streams, Sancheti said students who have secured 48 more marks in AIEEE are permitted to fill up choices online for counselling. For students in other backward classes and physically handicapped among them, mark range is 45 to 47, for SC/ST category and physically handicapped among them, range is 18 to 47 marks. Physically challenged students in open category too have 18 to 47 marks cut off.

Physically challenged students among OBC should have secured 18 to 44 marks to be eligible to secure a seat in the counselling, Sancheti said adding the cut off marks are merely indicative. Students in each of the above categories with a higher score stand a better choice of obtaining the seat, he said. In the architecture stream, 39,910 out of 67,484 students are from open category, 17,273 from BC, 7,011 SC students and 3,290 ST candidates.

Source: Times of India