IIT Madras introduces sports quota in BTech; JEE Advanced still must for admission

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has become the first IIT to introduce sports quota for admission to undergraduate (UG) programmes offered by the institute. The ‘Sports Excellence Admission’ (SEA) category will be added from the academic year 2024-2025.

Under the SEA category, two supernumerary seats will be offered, of which one will be exclusively for female students. Students who wish to apply through sports quota will still have to qualify JEE Advanced 2024. Instead of the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) portal, where JEE Main 2024 qualified candidates register for counselling, sports quota students will be required to register on the portal: https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/sea/.

“This initiative is to recognize and reward talented students who have excelled in sports. This program encourages deserving students to pursue higher education while continuing to excel in their sports,” the institute said in a statement.

Also read ‘JEE Advanced rank is just an integer’: IIT Madras director sports quota, suicides, Zanzibar campus

Who is eligible for sports quota?

Candidates should have secured a rank in the Common Rank List (CRL) or category-wise rank list in the JEE Advanced. Notably, IIT Madras will be responsible for conducting the JEE Advanced 2024 exam this year.

Additionally, students should have won at least one medal in any national or international-level sports competition in the last four years to be considered under the SEA category.

The institute will prepare a separate ‘Sports Rank List’ (SRL) on the basis of the total score obtained by the candidates in a specific list of sports. The seat allotment will be done based on this list.

The idea of introducing sports quota was first proposed by IIT Madras director V Kamakoti in the IIT Council meeting held last year in April 2023. Currently, no other IITs have sports supernumerary quota for admission.

IIT Madras director today said: “This is a very progressive step to ensure holistic education as envisaged in the National Education Policy 2020. This step is to acknowledge achievements in sports by young children and also, give them an opportunity to further understand their respective sports from an engineering and technology perspective. IIT Madras has added many sports-related electives and is also having many state-of-the-art facilities.”

IIT-M will also be launching a sports complex with advanced equipment soon, he said. “We are extremely happy that the ‘Sports Excellence Admission’ is happening, starting July 2024. We wish that our alumnus will become world-renowned sportspersons,” Kamakoti added.