JEE Main postponed to May; So, what happens to JEE Advanced now?

NEW DELHI: Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the Union Cabinet Minister for human resource development had tweeted late evening on March 27 that NEET UG and Joint Entrance Examination, or JEE Main, exam dates were postponed and the new dates would be somewhere in the last week of May. The tweet brought relief to students but raised another important and valid question – what happens to JEE Advanced 2020?

The JEE Advanced is conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology, or IITs, for admission into them but only the top 2.5 lakh scorers in JEE Main are eligible to write it.

Students, now confined to home, are raising this question on social media, addressing the authorities including the National Testing Agency which conducts the exam.

While the minister has tweeted that JEE Main will be held in the last week of May, the official website still shows the old notice and there has been no official notice from NTA which has simply retweeted the minister’s announcement. Consequently students have been left confused and are seeking clarification.

Other entreaties from students include not holding JEE Main at all but only JEE Advanced while removing restrictions on it.

JEE Advanced is the entrance examination for admissions to the undergraduate courses in engineering offered by 23 Indian Institutes of Technology. The top 2,50,000 students of JEE Main 2020 qualified students would be eligible to appear for the Advanced exam. The registrations would have started on May 2 while the exam date is May 17, 2020. Now with JEE Main being conducted around this period, it is inevitable that JEE Advanced is postponed. The reason being that only JEE Main qualifiers are eligible to apply. This means that students have to wait till the results of JEE Main are announced. In the normal world, the JEE results would have been announced on April 30 if the exam was to have been conducted on April 5, 7, 8, 9 and 11 as scheduled.

The new tentative dates mean that JEE Main results would only be declared in mid-June. This would mean that JEE Advanced registrations will be open only after that and the exam conducted thereafter. The results of the exam are generally announced three weeks after which pushes the date to July. JoSAA counselling will have to start in August which in normal times would amount to closure of admissions.

The probability of JEE Advanced being held will hold true only if the current crisis and lockdown on account of Coronavirus is lifted. If restrictions are extended after the 21 days lock down, chances of JEE Advanced being held look dim. If that happens, what happens to IIT admissions? Chances are that JEE Main scores may be used for the same.

Students are advised to continue their preparation in the meantime and check for updates on this front. The status of JEE Advanced will only be clear after April 13 when the lockdown is reportedly to be lifted.