S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Madras has become the first IIT in the country to introduce admissions for sportspersons in its undergraduate programmes.
The Institute will be introducing the ‘Sports Excellence Admission’ (SEA) from the academic year 2024-2025.
Under it, IIT Madras will offer two supernumerary seats, of which one will be exclusively for female students, in each of its undergraduate programs for Indian nationals.
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, say sources from IIT Madras.
The process
The admission process through SEA will require a student to qualify JEE (Advanced) but would not be through Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) portal rather through a separate portal operated by IIT Madras.
More details are available on the portal: https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/sea/
Director of IIT Madras
Announcing this program, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, 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, he said.
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IIT Madras has added many sports-related electives and is also having many state-of-the-art facilities, he said.
The Need
Highlighting the need for such an initiative, Prof. V. Kamakoti added, in addition, we will also be launching a Sports Complex with advanced equipment in the near future.
We are extremely happy that the ‘Sports Excellence Admission’ is happening, starting July 2024, said Director of IIT Madras.
‘We wish that our alumnus will become world-renowned sportspersons.’
Eligibility
To be eligible for admission through this program, candidates must have secured a position in the Common Rank List (CRL) or category-wise rank list in the JEE (Advanced), and must have won at least one medal in any National/International-level sports competition in the last four years.
A separate ‘Sports Rank List’ (SRL) will be prepared based on the total score obtained by the candidates based on their performance in a specific list of sports. The seat allotment will be done based on this list.
About IIT Madras
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) was established in 1959 by the Government of India as an ‘Institute of National Importance.’
The activities of the Institute in various fields of Science and Technology are carried out in 17 academic departments and several advanced interdisciplinary research academic centers.
The Institute offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes leading to B.Tech., M.Sc., M.B.A., M.Tech., M.S., and Ph.D., degrees in a variety of specialisations.
IITM is a residential institute with more than 600 faculty and 9,500 students. Students from 18 countries are enrolled here.
IITM fosters an active entrepreneurial culture with strong curricular support and through the IITM Incubation Cell.
Recognized as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) in 2019, IITM has been ranked No.1 in the ‘Overall’ Category for the fifth consecutive year in India Ranking 2023 released by National Institutional Ranking Framework, Ministry of Education, Govt. of India.
The Institute has also been ranked No.1 in the ‘Engineering Institutions’ category in the same Rankings for eight consecutive years – from 2016 to 2023.
It was also adjudged as the ‘Top innovative Institution’ in the country in Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
ARIIA Ranking was launched by the Innovation Cell of Ministry of Education.