JEE Main Counselling 2021: Know Details Of JoSAA, Guidelines & Registration Process

Bhubaneswar: The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the JEE Main results and almost all other results of the competitive exams are out. Students are now looking for admission to the NITs, IIITs and GFTIs.

While preparations for JEE Advanced is around the corner, the candidates are also in search of counselling and other important admission details. This is where the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) comes into play.

The JoSAA is the conducting body for the joint common counselling held for the JEE Main and JEE Advanced qualified candidates. This common counselling enables a single process for admissions to the 31 NITs, IIEST Shibpur, 26 IIITs and 29 other government-funded technical institutes (Other-GFTIs) on the basis of JEE Main ranks while admissions to the 23 IITs is based on the JEE Advanced ranks.

The entire process consists of registration, choice filling, mock allotments and finally, seat allotments are announced in six rounds.

The JEE Main counselling dates will be announced after the declaration of the JEE Advanced results on October 15. While the JoSAA website is yet to be activated for 2021 counselling, the JEE Advanced website said the JoSAA counselling commencement date is October 16.

Things to be kept ready before JEE Main Counselling:

JoSAA uses the JEE Main details of the candidates and therefore students need not keep photographs and other things handy. However, some precautions must be taken before one applies for the courses and colleges.

— Make a checklist of the preferred courses. Not all branches may be appealing or suitable. So, make a list of the courses.

— Draw another list of the most preferred colleges followed by those that are okay in case the top colleges are not feasible.

— Now match the two and draw the list of colleges and courses. This is important as the choice filling exercise in JoSAA exactly asks for this.

— Using the past year cutoffs and the ranks students have obtained in JEE Main 2021, candidates have a fair idea of the colleges they can apply to.

— Make sure to include all top colleges (irrespective of cut-offs and ranks) followed by the list of colleges as per the past year trends where there stand a chance of getting admission.

JEE Main Counselling process 2021 (JoSAA)

It is very important to understand the entire process of counselling before applying. This enables the applicants to be sure of what steps to take and what mistakes to avoid.

Registration: The first step is to register for the JEE Main counselling. This is done using the JEE Main application number and password. Registration is only done once the entire counselling process starts.

Choice filling: This is the second step where students have to enter their course and college preferences.

Mock seat allotment and choice locking: To help students know how their choice filling has gone and what their seat allotments will be like, JoSAA releases two mock seat allotments for the students to check and understand the process better. They have the option to change their preferences at this time.

Seat Allotment: The JEE Main ranks, category, choice of colleges etc determine the allotment. Once the allotment is announced, candidates must download the same. They must also accept the seat and indicate their willingness to retain the seat (freeze option), look for upgradation in the next round to higher choices (float option) or choose a different course at the same institute (slide option).

Payment of seat acceptance fee: Candidates who are allotted seats must pay the seat acceptance fee and complete other formalities to remain in the counselling process. Reserved category candidates (SC/ST and even PWD) need to pay Rs 15,000 while the others need to pay Rs 35,000. This is adjustable with the academic fee. The fee includes the JoSAA processing fee of Rs 2000.

Recommended: To check your admission chances in NITs/ IIITs/ State colleges based on JEE Main rank, use JEE Main College Predictor.

There is no separate JEE Main counselling other than JoSAA. For the seats vacant after the seventh round of JoSAA, special counselling will be held for only NIT+ seats through CSAB which is a separate process.

Candidates may note that JEE Main results were announced on September 15. Around 44 students have scored 100 percentile, out of which 18 students have been declared as first rank holders. A total of 939008 unique candidates had appeared for JEE Main 2021 (all four sessions).

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