Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains is the most popular engineering entrance exam in India. It leads to admission in NITs, IIITs, CFTIs, and also forms the basis of eligibility for the IIT admission entrance exam that is JEE Advanced. Since last year, National Testing Agency has been conducting the JEE Main, or as it is also called, JEE Mains. The exam is now held twice a year. Director General of NTA, Vineet Joshi, reportedly confirmed to media outlets today that the JEE Main 2020 application form will be available from September 2, 2019, and official notification will be released on August 20, 2019.
If these JEE main 2020 dates hold true then in two weeks exam dates, registration start and last dates, fees, will be clear. Then just four weeks from now, engineering aspirants across India will be able to submit their application forms in order to submit their candidature for the Joint Entrance Examination. Official website for registration shall be jeemain.nic.in. However official website of NTA shall be nta.ac.in, where, notifications and press releases or other announcements related to the exam will also be made in addition to official website of exam.
NTA is yet to officially state exam dates or application form dates on official website or in leading dailies. Reports of next to next Tuesday being date of issuance of notification and first Monday of next month as that for registration, surfaced today in news reports.
Last year NTA had invited application for JEE Main January attempt from September 1 to 30. Then exam date, city, center was revealed in November-December, and admit card was released on December 17. The national level engineering entrance exam was held on January 8 for paper-2, and from January 9 to 12 for paper-1. Paper 1 in JEE Mains is for admission to undergraduate engineering BE/BTech programs, whereas paper 2 is for undergraduate architecture and planning B.Arch / B Plan programs.
Overall 12,37,892 number of unique students had registered for January and April sessions combined, last year, and 11,47,125 had appeared. 6,08,440 were such who had appeared in both January and April sessions. 2,97,932 students were able to improve their performance in April, in comparison to January. For paper 1, number of common registered students in January and April was 73,898, and number of common test takers were 61,510, and number of students who improved their performance was 27,624.
Here it is relevant to point out that JEE Main Jan 2020, and Apr 2020 will be held respectively in January and April next year. For now, applications will be invited for the January or first attempt. The two attempts are irrespective of each other and hence dates, online application form, and all other details of the two come separately.
In the previous session NTA had released the schedule of JEE Main, UGC NET, NEET, CMAT, GPAT, and NEET on August 21 through a single notification. In it, the agency had also clarified that NEET was to be held in offline (pen and paper) mode. In addition, the concept and scale of test practice centers was introduced. Since then the scope of conduct of exams has grown for NTA, and it has conducted not only the said exams but also ICAR’s AIEEA UG, PG, SRF exams, DUET for Delhi University, AIAPGET for Ayush postgraduation courses, IGNOU OPENMAT for MBA, and NCHMCT JEE for hotel management programs. To kickstart the 2020 session, NTA may release a combined schedule for 2020 exams.
Editor’s note: The final decision on dates and schedule of JEE Main 2020, its application form date and last date, rest in the hands of NTA. We will publish updated news on finalized official dates as soon as the same are revealed by National Testing Agency.