1.60 lakh students applied for IIT-JEE Advanced, lowest in three years

 JEE Advanced 2020: Out of the over 2.5 lakh candidates who were eligible to apply for the IIT entrance exam – JEE Advanced, only 1,60,864 students have applied, according to the official data released by the IIT-Delhi. This is the lowest in the past three years. In 2019, 1.73 lakh, and in 2018 1.65 lakh students had applied for the exam.

The number was expected to be lower this year as the exams are held amid pandemic. Even for the JEE Main September 2020, over one lakh candidates did not turn up for the exam.

The number of applicants for JEE Advanced has been declining over the years. While those who are eligible to appear for Advanced can directly seek admission in any other college as well, students and experts claim rising popularities of metro-based NITs as one of the reasons.

“If a student has secured a rank in 2000s in JEE Mains, s/he will get whichever programme they want to in an NIT but if they appear and clear the JEE Advanced they might not get their preferred course in the IIT of their choice with such a score,” an IIT dean had explained while talking to indianexpress.com last year.

The JEE Advanced 2020 is scheduled to be held on September 27. This year, IIT-Delhi is conducting the exam. The institute is all set to hold exams amid special precautions. Apart from asking its alumni to facilitate travel for the aspirants, the IIT has also increased the number of exam centres. IIT Alumni had launched a portal to help needy students which also came into effect during JEE Main.

The exam will be held across 222 cities across India, up from 164 last year. The number of exam centres has been almost doubled from 600 last year to 1150 this year, as per the IIT. Masks and sanitisers are a must to appear for the exam.