JEE Main Eligibility Criteria – Age, Qualification, Attempts

Have you passed class 12th or you are appearing? Are you applying for JEE Mains entrance exam? Have you checked the eligibility criteria of JEE Mains ? If Not! Don’t worry, here in this article I am going to cover all the topics under eligibility criteria of JEE Main .

CBSE has announced registration dates. Last date for applying is 1st of January. The link of application form is available on the official website and the exam dates are announced for JEE Main, which will going to be held in the month of April.

Candidates must satisfy the conditions of eligibility criteria to take part in JEE Main entrance exam. If any student found ineligible at any stage of eligibility, he/she will be eliminated directly by the authorities.

Have a look on eligibility criteria of JEE Main Examination:

JEE Main Eligibility Criteria

Central Board of Secondary Education (C.B.S.E) is conducting the JEE Main Examination. Aspirants can apply for different courses of their choices by registering online. JEE Main consist of two papers: Paper I (B.E./B.Tech) & Paper II (B.Arch/B.Planning) to take admission in NITs, IIITs, IITs and other CFTIs. Examination board is providing option for candidates to give exam in offline i.e. pen and paper mode and online i.e. computer based mode. The pen and paper mode exam is on 8th of April and the other one on 15th and 16th of April.

JEE Main is not discriminating students neither in nationality nor in their caste. JEE Main entrance exam is open for all candidates from any country from any part of the world i.e. Indians, OCIs, NRIs and other foreign candidates are also welcomed.

JEE Main – Age Criteria

Age criteria is the very first point which comes in everyone’s mind and to solve this query, Board is accepting applications from general category candidates who are born on or after 1st of October 1999, i.e. their age must not be more than 24 years while applying for JEE Mains application form.

There is 5 years of age relaxation for students who belong to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Persons with Disabilities (PwD). Candidates belongs to this category must be born on or after 1st of October, 1994 i.e. the upper age limit is 29 years.

Note: While entering information in application form, candidates need to fill their date of birth according to 10th passing certificate issued by recognized board.

JEE Main – Qualification Criteria

Eligible: Candidates who are appearing in class 12th exam or any equivalent qualifying exam in , are eligible to apply.
And those who have qualified their 12th class exam or any equivalent qualifying exam in 2017 or 2018, are also eligible to apply.

Ineligible: Candidates who have passed their 12th class or equivalent qualifying exam in 2015 or before, as well as those who will appear in 2019 or later, are not eligible for entrance exam.
And, candidates who appeared in 12th class or equivalent in 2015 and was not able to qualify in 2015, but passed in 2016, are also not eligible for JEE Main examination.

Subjects: In order to get eligible, education wise, for JEE Main, candidates must have taken 5 subjects in class 12th or qualifying examination and those who have taken 4 subjects are not allowed to give exam, and if any candidate fill wrong information regarding subjects, their result or rank will not be declared.

List of qualifying exam to get eligible for JEE Main:

• 2 year pre-university examination by a recognized Board or University
• students from final exam of 2 year course of the Joint Services Wing of National Defence Academy (NDA)
• National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) senior secondary school examination with atleast 5 subjects
• any public school/university/board examination which the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) recognizes as equivalent to 12th, in India or any foreign country

Diploma: Candidates who are diploma holders can also apply for JEE Main, but only for IITs. It can be treated as 12th pass only. So basically, they have to give JEE Main exam so that they can further apply for JEE Advance. Their admission will be based on JEE Advance scores not on JEE Mains score.

Improvement: Candidate who qualified 12th class and want to appear for improvement exam next year in selected subjects, then the marks of previous papers will only be considered in JEE Main.
And, if a candidate is failed in any subject and giving improvement next year (2019) then they must give exam for all the 5 subjects. The board will consider the best performance of any two subjects.

Requirement of Aadhaar Card

The board authorities made Aadhaar card compulsory for candidates applying for JEE Main examination. All appearing candidates should possess Aadhaar card, issued by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Aadhaar card is used at the time of applying to the application form. Candidates have to fill their aadhaar number, date of birth, name and gender which is validated by UIDAI’s data. If the details filled with Aadhaar does not match with your certificates, the candidates will not be able to proceed. So make sure that your Aadhaar card has correct details of your name, date of birth, etc.

Candidates who have enrolled for Aadhaar but not recieved their aadhaar card, can apply for JEE Main 2018 exam and enter the 14 digits of aadhaar enrollment ID at the time of applying. Those who do not yet enrolled for Aadhaar must enroll at nearby aadhaar enrollment centres before the last date of JEE Main 2018 application form.

Requirement of aadhaar is applicable for all states except J&K, Assam and Meghalaya. The candidates from these states need to provide any ID issued by government such as ration card, passport, bank account, etc.

Note: Candidates who are providing any government ID, can select city of examination from these states only.

JEE Main – Attempts & Minimum Marks for Admissions in NITs, IIITs & CFTIs

The board authority provides atmost 3 chances to candidates to appear in JEE Main examination. If a candidate appeared last year JEE Main exam and not able to qualify, then automatically he/she have only 2 chances left for upcoming JEE Mains exams.

As per new changes in the JEE pattern from 2018, the criteria to take admission in NITs, IIITs and CFTIs are as follows:

• There will be no weightage of 12th class while calculating All India Rank (AIR) after JEE Main 2019 exam.
• Candidates from general category should secure 75% marks or be in top 20 percentile in their respective and authorized boards.
• And candidates from SC/ST, should secured 65% in the 12th class exam conducted by recognized boards.

From 2014, states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Nagaland has joined JEE Main sytem. The age criteria and number of attempts will remain same as per their state level examinations. However, it will be obviously not applicable for admission to IITs/NITs/IIITs/CFTIs.

Hope this article will clear your queries related to eligibility criteria. Nevertheless, if you have any doubt you can ask anytime in the comment box below.