The JEE Main is the most important examination for many Indian students who wish to become engineers, architects, etc. Let us, therefore, understand the eligibility criteria and pattern of this examination.

Eligibility Criteria – JEE Main

Candidates who are interested in appearing for JEE Main must note that they are only allowed a maximum of three attempts in the JEE Main. Candidates who are interested in admission to those institutions in the states of Maharashtra and Odisha which earlier admitted candidates on the basis of state level examinations will be subject to age limit and other eligibility criteria as per the past practice of these states. However, such candidates will not be eligible for admission to centrally funded institutions like the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), NITs (National Institutes of Technology), IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology), etc.

Further, in order to be eligible for JEE Main 2015, candidates must have appeared in their Class 12th or equivalent qualifying examination either in 2013, or 2014 or 2015. Candidates who had appeared in their Class 12th or equivalent examination in 2012, did not pass the examination in 2012 and passed it in 2013 are not eligible to appear for the JEE Main 2015.

General category candidates born on or after October 1, 1990 are eligible for the JEE Main 2015 while Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST)/Person with Disabilities (PwD) candidates born on or after October 1, 1985 are eligible for the JEE Main.

Eligibility Criteria – JEE Advanced

A candidate’s performance in the JEE Advanced is the sole criteria for selection to the highly reputed IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology). The JEE Advanced has some additional eligibility criteria as well. Let us look at these criteria.

A candidate can appear for the JEE Advanced twice and both the attempts must be consecutive attempts (i.e. there should not be any gap year between the two attempts). Thus, candidates who have appeared for JEE Advanced 2013 are not eligible for JEE Advanced 2015.

Further, candidates must have appeared in their Class 12th or equivalent qualifying examination either in 2014 or in 2015. Candidates whose Class 12th or equivalent qualifying examination results for the academic year 2012-13 were declared after June 2013 are also eligible for JEE Advanced 2015.

The age limit for the JEE Advanced 2015 is the same as the age limit for JEE Main 2015.

In addition to these criteria, a candidate should have secured a rank among the top 20% of all students who appeared in the Class 12th examination or equivalent qualifying examination. Alternatively, the candidate should have secured at least 75% (for General or OBC-NCL category) or 70% (SC, ST or PwD category) of aggregate marks in the Class 12th or equivalent qualifying examination. Further, the candidate must secure a rank among the top one and a half lakh candidates (approximately) in the JEE Main Examination Paper I 2015.

Only those candidates who satisfy all of the above criteria are eligible for JEE Advanced 2015.

To get further details about JEE and to download the information bulletin for this examination, do visit http://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/welcome.aspx

All the Best!