In a bid to attract students from the United States to India’s premier engineering institutions, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to hold next year’s Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) in San Francisco for the first time.
According to the Hindustan Times, though Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Dubai (UAE), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Singapore were among foreign centres where the IIT JEE (Advanced) 2019 exam was held, it has never been conducted in the US. A senior official told the leading daily, “There is a clear tech link between India and the United States and the IIT system has been receiving requests, including from the Silicon Valley area, regarding the possibility of such a test. There is also a sizeable diaspora in the US, many of them in the technology sector. So, a decision has been taken that a centre will also be set up in San Francisco for the 2020 JEE (Advanced) test which is likely to be held in the month of May.”
While Indian students have to undergo a screening test in the JEE (Mains) exam, after which shortlisted students can appear for IIT JEE (Advanced),foreign students can directly take the second test for admission to the undergraduate course. For next year’s exam, about 250,000 Indian students will be shortlisted from the JEE (Advanced), according to a third official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
V Ramgopal Rao, the director of IIT-Delhi told the Hindustan Times, “There are a lot of Indians in the Bay Area in San Francisco. When one of our delegations visited the US, the Indians there, including IIT alumni, expressed wish to get a chance to let their children study in the IITs. So a decision has been taken to include San Francisco in the list of centres. We are hoping that, apart from the diaspora, other students in the US will also try to join the IITs."
