In a first, IIT Madras gives admission to five national athletes under sports excellence category

Chennai: In a first, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has admitted five athletes with national accomplishments under its Sports Excellence Admission (SEA) category for the academic year 2024-2025. IIT Madras became the first IIT in the country to introduce admissions for sportspersons in its undergraduate programmes.

The initiative was offered through two supernumerary seats in each of its undergraduate programs for Indian nationals, of which one will be exclusively for female students.

The initiative was created to recognise and reward talented students who have excelled in sports. This program encourages deserving students to pursue higher education while continuing to excel in their sports.

The five athletes admitted under the Sports Excellence Admission category for 2024-25 AY are:

1. Arohi Bhave (volleyball player) from Maharashtra: Admitted into BS (Medical Sciences and Engineering)

2. Aryaman Mandal (water polo and swimming) from West Bengal: Admitted into BTech (Computer Science and Engineering)

3. Nandini Jain (squash player) from Delhi: Admitted into BTech (Computer Science and Engineering)

4. Prabhav Gupta (table tennis player) from Delhi: Admitted into BTech (Artificial Intelligence and Data Science)

5. Vangala Vedavachan Reddy (lawn tennis player) from Andhra Pradesh: Admitted into BTech (Artificial Intelligence and Data Science).

How does the admission process for the SEA category work?

The admission process for SEA is through the JEE examination and requires candidates to pass JEE (Advanced) but would not be through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) portal but rather through a separate portal operated by IIT Madras.

Further information can be found on the SEA website: https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/sea/information.html

To be eligible for admission through this program, candidates must have secured a position in the Common Rank List (CRL) or category-wise rank list in the JEE (Advanced) and must have won at least one medal in any national/international-level sports competition in the last four years.

A separate Sports Rank List (SRL) will be prepared based on the total score obtained by the candidates based on their performance in a specific list of sports. The seat allotment will be done based on this list.

All five athletes have passed JEE (Advanced)

Welcoming the five athletes to the Institute, Prof V Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras, said, “The sports excellence admission is an initiative of IIT Madras primarily to send the important message that young children must be encouraged to play during their childhood. I sincerely hope this reaches to all concerned.”

Prof Mahesh Panchagnula, who is also Dean (Emeritus), IIT Madras, added, “We had several applications but finally, we were able to admit five students of excellent standing and academically qualified. They have passed JEE (Advanced), like any other IIT student. In that sense, there is no compromise on the relative quality of academic merit that is expected but at the same time, the initiative rewards sports pursuit and excellence.”

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