8 Aug 2008, 0309 hrs IST, Hemali Chhapia,TNN

MUMBAI: For the first time in the history of IITs, a second round of
admissions is on to fill vacant seats at all its 13 campuses. More
students will also be accommodated in the preparatory course, which is
like a feeder class that trains SC and ST students for a year to equip
them to qualify for the IITs. Students need to take a test at the end
of the year-long tutorial.

If they qualify, the gates of IITs are opened to them. For the
preparatory course, each IIT relaxes the lowest SC and ST cutoffs by
55%. With that figure being 104 for both reserved categories this
year, the preparatory course cutoff turned out to be 57 out of a total
of 489. This cutoff will dip further if additional students have to be
admitted.

Prasad said, "We will also begin running the preparatory course at the
six new IITs from this year.'' While this will put an additional
burden on the overnight-born institutes, it will prevent a repeat of
the ''vacant seat'' scenario next year as those candidates will be
eligible for admission then.

The older IITs managed to fill some SC/ST seats with students who were
admitted to the preparatory course in 2007, but there were no such
admissions at the new IITs. This year's sorry situation was the result
of the government commissioning six new IITs (thus increasing the pool
of seats by 720), which simultaneously led to the increase of quota
seats (for which there were not enough eligible applicants).

Despite lowering the cutoff percentage in the name of affirmative
action, not enough reserved category students could make the grade.