BITSAT v/s JEE: Gauging The Level Of Competition
Today, IITs are the most elite colleges of our country. They are world renowned institutes. Students from all over the world come here for their graduation. As per students views, IIT entrance exam is the toughest entrance exam but if we compare the competitive level of IIT exam with BITS exam, then we can contradict the above statement. An average of 100 students will compete for a seat in this year’s BITSAT (Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test), the online test for admission into degree courses at Birla Institute of Technology and Science. In comparison to this, only 47 students contested for a seat at the JEE-Mains 2016.
Total number of applications received for BITSAT-2016 is expected to be around 2 lakh per 2000 seats at the institute’s campuses in Pilani, Hyderabad and Goa. This national level engineering entrance exam will be conducted at around 50 cities in India and Dubai between May 14 and May 28, 2016. On the other hand, 12.5 lakh students took the JEE-Main 2016 on April 3, 2016 (offline mode) and on April 9 and April 10, 2016 (online mode) to be eligible for admission into IITs. There are a total of about 33,365 seats in 18 IITs, ISM Dhanbad, 32 NITs, 18 IIITs and 19 other Government Funded Technical Institutes (GFTIs). From the JEE-Main result, first 2,00,000 students can appear for JEE Advanced for 10,006 seats. This means only 20 students contesting per seat for 18 IITs and ISM Dhanbad.
Institutes under JEE-Main Total number of Seats
All IITs + ISM Dhanbad 10,006
All NITs 17,390
All IIITs 2,228
All other GFTIs 3,741
The VIT entrance exam, which was conducted between April 6, 2016 to April 17, 2016 for admission into a deemed university i.e. Vellore Institute of Technology, follows the IITs with 40 students competing for one seat. The exam was taken by about 2 lakh students across India for admission to 4,917 seats. “VIT sees the largest number of applicants among deemed universities because of its placement record, especially in the IT sector,” said Jayaprakash Gandhi, an educational consultant.
According to Educationalists, there is a continuous increase in IITs seats since 2008, which lowered the student to seat ratio, putting it behind BITS. As in 2008, six new IITs were established and seven new courses were added, which increased its seats from approximately 5,500 to 7000. In 2009, two more IITs were established, which raise the number of seat from approximately 7000 to 8,200. In 2015, there were a total of 18 IITs along with ISM Dhanbad and the total number of seats increased to 10,006. In 2016, four new IITs were added by government.
Over the last nine years, number of students applying to the BITSAT has increased steadily from around 88,000 in 2007 to 1.36 lakh in 2012 and to about 2 lakh in 2016. In comparison to IITs, numbers of seats at BITS have remained constant at 2000, making it more competitive. “The BITSAT has been growing in popularity among students since it was introduced in 2005. Over the last 2-3 years, number of applicants has increased enough to make the exam more competitive than the IIT-JEE,” says S. Mohan, Associate Dean of Admissions at BITS. Eligibility criteria for BITSAT was 80% in the board exams earlier, which was then lowered to 75% making more students eligible. “We found that a lot of students were getting left out due to the high qualifying percentage,” says S. Mohan. Whereas in IITs, they decreased the number of attempts to 2, which decreases the total number of student attempting JEE. If we see the record of number of students who applied for JEE-Main for last three years, then it is clearly seen that the record is constantly decreasing.
Year Number of Student who appeared in JEE-Main
2016 12,50,000
2015 13,00,000
2014 13,50,000
2013 14,00,000
Reason which makes BITSAT more popular than any other entrance exam and among CBSE school students is that it is based on the NCERT school syllabus. ‘We discourage aspiring students from taking extra coaching for the exams and students who prepare well for their class-12 board exams can do well in the BITSAT,” says S. Mohan. For appearing in BITSAT, students should have obtained a minimum of aggregate 75% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics subjects in the board exam, which is the highest cut-off among all other engineering tests.
Hence, we feel that BITSAT is a commendable entrance test, as well! Read our guide to cracking BITSAT here.
