Now foreign students can enrol in IITs with just one entrance examination

The premier technological education institutes, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is going international. No not by expanding the campuses but inviting foreign nationals to be a part of the programmes. As planned, IITs will be holding entrance examinations outside India and there would be a 10% additional seats to accommodate foreign students.

"Foreign candidates will have to qualify the JEE advanced examination for an IIT seat. The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) for entry to MTech courses will be held in these six countries as well," an official informed the Economic Times. Foreign candidates, however, will not have to take the JEE main examination.

The official clarified that the there would be no decrease in the number of the seats for Indian students. "The 10% intake is in addition to the existing seats available in each of the 23 IITs,” he added.

Also, 20,000 more candidates will be eligible to write the exam after clearing JEE main, thus taking the total number to 2,20,000. The examination will be held in six countries outside India - Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE, Nepal and Singapore. The number of foreign students can't exceed 10% of the total seats in each course offered by the IITs and ISM-Dhanbad, as per the news report on the ET. There is no quota in this category. Also the cut-off for the aggregate marks in Class XII for SC and ST candidates has been reduced from 70% to 65% in JEE advanced 2017.

Increase in fees
Candidates who register for entrance exams after due date would be allowed to fill up the forms after paying a late fee of Rs 500. There has been an increase in registration fee from Rs 1,200 from Rs 1,000 for girls and reserved category students and to Rs 2,400 from Rs 2,000 for others. Students coming from SAARC countries will need to pay $135 (Rs 9000) and those from the other countries would pay $270 (Rs 18000).