The Role of State Code of Eligibility and Domicile in JEE Main 2018 Colleges

JEE Main 2018 Results are out and you are done with getting a promising rank in JEE Main 2018. As you might have found out there are many colleges nationwide which would consider your score. But do you think that rank alone would suffice for your admission into the JEE Main 2018 colleges? Is there something else, which you need to know about? Yes, you need to have a very clear about the State Code of Eligibility or state domicile which can affect you in JEE admissions.
 

Defining the State Code of Eligibility

So first and foremost, what is this State Code of Eligibility? You must have noticed that all national and state level entrance exams in India like NEET (AIPMT), JEE Main UPSEE, RPET, OJEE, VITEEE, JEE Advanced etc. require you to mention your state in your application form. Here, you have to mention the state from which you have passed the class 12th or an equivalent qualifying examination, by virtue of which you have become eligible to appear in the JEE Main for admission to B.E or B. Tech and B. Arch or B. Planning courses, on offer at various institutions or colleges offered at different state and union territory levels.
 

Important points of consideration regarding the State Code of Eligibility

• The mandatory thing to be noted here is that if a candidate has passed class 12th or an equivalent qualifying examination from one state, but later appears for improvement exam from another state, then in his or her application form, he or she should mention the state from which he originally sat for the exam, and not the one from where he gave the improvement exam. This has to be written in the column for state from where he is eligible to apply for the exam.

• Not only this, but also the Indian nationals who appear for their class 12th qualifying exam from an institution abroad, are also eligible to apply from a state wherein they have a permanent address proof in India. This is the state which is also mentioned on the passport of that particular candidate. Though, the candidates who have passed or appeared in the qualifying examination from Nepal or Bhutan, have already been given a State Code of Eligibility, which is mentioned as code 99 in the official information brochure of JEE Main 2018.
   

The Admission Process of NITs on the basis of State Code of Eligibility

NITs have 50% weightage for outside state students, plus 50% weightage for the local students hailing from that particular state. Thus, in order to get admission to one of the NITs by getting the benefit of being in the local list, the students have to do their class 11th and 12th from that particular state. This is advantageous because the competition for local 50% would be much lesser than the 50% for which students would be competing at a national level.  In NITs, it has got nothing to do with the domicile or where they reside. Which means, if a student studies from one state and has a permanent address proof of another state, for the NIT admissions it does not make any difference. Basically, anywhere the student has completed his class 11th and 12th, the student will become eligible for that state’s NIT quota. Thus here, the State Code of Eligibility is the same as the state from which the candidate has cleared his class 11th and 12th.

Gopal Sharma, an NIT alumnus and gold medallist in mechanical engineering, , further explains the state quota apart from the 50% home state quota (called HS) and 50% quota for the rest of India in central colleges (like NITs) as, “There are a few additional seats for foreign students as well. Now an obvious question arises: What is the provision for the students of Union Territories (UTs)? For such students, the full Home State Quota will be made available at the nearest NIT. And these respective seats will be from the 50% Rest of India seats of that NIT.”
 

Difference of State Quota v/s Domicile

Apart from the JEE Mains there are other state engineering entrance exams as well. So, if we assume that a student has a domicile of ‘A’ state and is taking the class 11th and 12th from ‘B’ state, in that case he becomes eligible for the NIT of ‘B’ state, and also along with this, he becomes eligible to sit for entrance exams of state engineering colleges of ‘A’ state. Nonetheless, he would not be eligible for NITs of ‘A’ state.”

Let me explain this via an example, “If you are a student of Andhra Pradesh and you have a domicile of Tamilnadu, then you do not become eligible for NIT of Tamilnadu. On the other hand, you become eligible to apply for state government colleges of Tamilnadu. However, you can access this eligibility only when you appear for state engineering college entrance exams of Tamilnadu. This is how the domicile eligibility for admissions at different states actually works.
 

Advantage of State Quota in NITs

If we talk about qualifying for admissions on the basis of state quota in JEE Main, experts reveal that preference is given to candidates who are from the same state in which the NIT is placed. Like for instance, take a student who has completed his class 11th and 12th from Andhra Pradesh and manages to get a JEE Rank Score of 14,000 in JEE Main 2018. Another candidate has passed his class 11th and 12th from UP and has a JEE Rank Score of say 7,000 in Main. In such a situation there is a high chance that the student from Andhra Pradesh would be given preference for admission at NIT Warangal (located in Andhra Pradesh) over the student from UP.  It is highly essential to understand how State Quotas and Domiciles work before you set out to work towards applying for institutes according to your rank in JEE main 2018. Where in same cases you will see yourself in benefit, some other cases may as well limit your opportunities.