Getting Success in Engineering Admissions 2012

The general feeling is that students have a less than 5% chance of getting admission into an engineering college of his choice. With over 5 lakh candidates who took the IIT-JEE in 2012 for 9,600 seats and an estimated 12 lakh who plan to write the AIEEE for 35,000 seats the chances do appear slim. And similar is the story for BITSAT, Vellore IT and Manipal ENAT. That combined with over 50 odd entrance examinations which make engineering one of the most competitive college admissions in the country.

But is the admission scenario really that difficult? There are 3,393 engineering colleges in India with a capacity of 14.85 lakh seats across 36 courses approved by AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education). So, where is the catch? It seems that there are enough seats. What happens, however, is that majority of the candidates are not aware of their options. Because of this many miss out on alternatives. This is true even of AIEEE scores that by far cover the largest number of seats.

Besides IIT-JEE, an applicant aspiring for an engineering admission can obtain it through:
Central counseling of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), State-level examinations which can be written by its domiciles, AIEEE scores at institutions that accept them, Own examination and counseling of institutions or their associations and Marks obtained in class X and XII and the central counseling of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE)

This year in 2012, the Central Board of Secondary Education conducted the AIEEE examination in both online and offline mode. This year the offline examination was held on April 29 and the online examinations from May 7 to 26. The process will be followed by a central counseling process for candidates who successfully meet the rank cut-offs. The central counseling process will start on June 16 and end on August 8. The AIEEE rank card will give three types of ranks: an All India Rank, the state rank, category rank and notify the eligibility of the candidate for the central counseling. These candidates become eligible for admission to the institutions that participate in the central counseling. These include all the 30 NITs (National Institutes of Technology); some among the Indian Institutes of Information Technology, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Manufacturing , and Indian Institutes of Information Technology , Design and Manufacturing; some government and government-aided institutions and some private and self-financed colleges.

Highlights of the procedure:
The online registration, filling up of choices and choice locking will have to be done between June 16 and 25. There are 3 rounds of seat allotment on June 27, July 5 and July 12 respectively. Candidates will be given the chance to modify their choices once again between July 17 and 22. Classes will commence in the institutes participating in central counseling on July 23. The fourth round of seat allotment will be done on July 25.

Candidates allotted seats in the fourth round can complete admission formalities at the respective colleges between July 25 and 30. Internal sliding will be completed on August 1. During internal sliding students will get yet another chance to take up a course which they had chosen as higher in preference at that college based on available vacancies and rank. In the end there will be a spot-round on August 8 for which all the candidates who have yet not got a seat allocation can register, fill in and lock their choices between August 3 and 6.

Many states conduct their own entrance examination for admissions to engineering colleges in the state. For example, in Maharashtra, there is the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET ), in UP there is the UP State Entrance Exam (UPSEE ), in West Bengal there is the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE), in Karnataka there is the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (CET) and in Andhra Pradesh there is the Engineering , Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET). Generally these entrance tests can only be undertaken by the domiciles of the respective states only.

The states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand do not conduct any entrance examinations of their own. They use the state ranks of AIEEE in counseling for admission to engineering colleges in the state. Some states also allow private and self-financed institutions in the state to grant admission based on the AIEEE ranks to candidates coming from other states. For example, in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan , Maharashtra and Orissa, 15% of the seats in all private and self-financed institutions are open to AIEEE rank holders from other states. The same is true of UP and West Bengal, where 10 % of the seats are open to AIEEE rank holders coming from students from other states. In addition there are institutions which have a significant part of their admissions intake based on the AIEEE ranks. Some of these are Thapar University, Panjab University and the PEC Technical University, Nirma University, Sastra University, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT) Delhi and DTU.