Demystifying Preparatory Courses in IITs

The IITs run preparatory courses for SC, ST and PwD students who do not clear the JEE cutoffs for their respective categories. This is done because it was observed that a significant number of reserved seats for people of these categories go unfilled. Preparatory courses do not reserve any additional seats, nor do they provide any guarantee of admission; rather, they are an effort to fill the seats which have anyway been reserved and are an attempt to ensure that seats meant for these students are fully utilised. The number of students admitted depends on the vacant seats in these different categories (SC, ST, PwD) across IITs. 

This course is a year-long, pre-degree programme organised by one IIT for every zone (East, Central, North-Central, North-East, North, South, West) on a rotational basis. The objective is to strengthen the fundamentals in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and English, which provide the skills to perform better in the full degree programmes. Upon completing the course with a passing grade, students are offered admission to the IITs allotted to them, during the initial seat allocation procedure.

Eligibility

The preparatory courses are exclusively for SC and ST students, and for PwD students of all categories (General/OBC-NCL/SC/ST etc.).To gain admission to this preparatory course, the candidates must meet a separate preparatory course cutoff in JEE which is lower than the category cutoff. Students who have accepted a seat in the preparatory course earlier and fail to complete the course successfully are ineligible for the preparatory course the second time. 

JoSAA Counselling

Eligible candidates receive a separate rank in addition to their common rank list All-India Rank and their category (SC/ST/PwD) ranks. For instance, a ‘150 (P)’ rank implies that the candidate is placed 150th among all the students eligible for the preparatory course. The counselling process for the preparatory course seats begins after all rounds of JoSAA counselling end. The seats reserved for SC, ST and PwD candidates, which remain vacant in the JoSAA counselling, are allotted to the candidates of respective categories. The institute and branch is decided based on the preparatory course rank of the student. On successfully passing the preparatory course (possibly in a different IIT, see the Host Institute section), the student can join their program in their allotted institute. 

Host Institute

Upon confirming their preparatory course seat in the counselling process, students must report to their host institute for the one-year programme. The host institute might differ from the IIT where the candidate has secured admission. For instance, students that secured seats in IIT Goa, Bombay, Dharwad and Gandhinagar were to report to IIT Bombay in 2021 for that academic year. The host institutes vary annually, and JoSAA releases a notification on its website with a list of host IITs for every region.  

Admission Process

Each host IIT has varying administrative procedures for admission. However, it is common for students to receive a notification from the host institute with the necessary credentials (roll number, email ID and passwords) and instructions to register with the institute. Following this, students will have to pay the fees for the programme and upload relevant documents. 

Fees and Document Information

Insight has collected some of the publicly available documents that provide information about preparatory courses, and has linked them here in the hope that they can be of use to future preparatory course students. This is by no means an exhaustive repository, and the rules are subject to change. Prospective candidates are advised to regularly check official sources like the JEE Advanced website and those of individual IITs for recent information.

Information Brochures

JEE Advanced 2023; JEE Advanced 2021

Registration Process 

IIT Kharagpur (2018 – 19); IIT Ropar (2021 – 22); IIT Bhubaneswar (2022 – 23)

Fee Structure 

IIT Hyderabad (2019 – 20); IIT Jodhpur (2019 – 20); IIT Bombay (2021 – 22)

Syllabus and Passing Criteria

The programme is divided into two semesters – with physics, chemistry, mathematics, and english, along with practical courses (physics and chemistry labs) in both semesters. It is designed to strengthen the fundamentals of 11th and 12th grade and provide an overview of the first-year courses. Certain professors decide to teach extra material covering more of the first-year curriculum. The curriculum thus varies across years and institutes.

The passing criteria, while different for every host institute, is about 35% to 40% of the total marks for each subject. On successful completion of the course, candidates will be offered direct admission into the first year of their allotted program for the next academic year. They will occupy the seat in the same IIT and the branch that was allocated to them previously in the preparatory course counselling. 

Preparatory Courses in IIT Bombay (2021-22)

The Insight team had extensive discussions with students who were enrolled in the preparatory course held at IIT-B in the 2021-22 academic year. A total of 40 students were enrolled in the preparatory course at IIT-B, of which 37 finally joined the degree programmes. A lot of students joining the preparatory course were unclear on what the course exactly entailed and did not find many answers on the Internet either. The institute, however, accorded a high priority to these students, conducting their orientations and took efforts to call them to campus towards the end of November 2021 while taking necessary precautions due to COVID. This was almost a month before most UG students were called. Unlike other students, it was mandatory for the preparatory course students to be present on campus. 

Similar to first-year students, they stayed in H15 and H16. Importantly, they were not segregated into separate wings and, in some cases, had non-preparatory course students as their roommates. Their schedule and courses differed from first-year students, and some students mentioned feeling disconnected from the rest of the institute. But the hostel arrangement facilitated at least some interaction with other people of their age.

A typical day had about 3-5 hours of lectures with weekly tutorial slots – the courses covered physics, chemistry, mathematics and english. For the former three, the students had to attain a cumulative minimum of 40% over two semesters, whereas they were required to score at least 30% in each semester in English to pass the course.

The students’ experience with the courses conclude that there is a scope of improvement in the way preparatory courses are held. Professors were given a lot of autonomy in how they taught the courses which resulted in inconsistencies in the curricula. Some of them followed curricula similar to the first year courses, while others covered topics from the JEE syllabus, to improve the understanding of fundamentals. Thus, the motive of the preparatory course was unclear to students. They did not know if the objective was to strengthen JEE concepts or to teach the first-year curriculum. 

Preparatory course students were not assigned any student mentors, and had to navigate all of these issues on their own. The responsibility was taken up by their faculty advisors (Prof. Bharat Adsul and Prof. Madhu Belur), who, according to the students, made commendable efforts to ensure that they felt comfortable. They were very approachable and frequently met them in person.

Insight’s Take

In this section, we aim to present some suggestions which, if implemented, could improve the experiences of future students enrolled in preparatory courses.

Course Instruction: 

Through conversations with the faculty advisors, Insight learnt that the respective HoDs allot the professors for preparatory courses in a similar manner to all other courses offered by the institute. There is significant room for improvement here since preparatory courses are fundamentally different from “normal” courses that most professors are accustomed to teaching. Professors with more experience teaching first-year courses could preferentially be assigned as instructors for preparatory courses, especially those who received positive student feedback. The course curriculum, too, can be discussed amongst the instructors in advance, clarified to students, and made reasonably uniform across IITs. 

On talking to professors and the students it was found that further support can be considered – especially for students who wrote their JEE Advanced exams in Hindi or other regional languages. IIT Bombay has recently introduced HS113: Academic English, in place of the first-year HASMED course, for students who perform below a threshold in the English Literacy test upon registration. This should hopefully also be beneficial for preparatory course students who need additional help when they join their first year.

Mentorship:

One of the most serious issues faced by students was the lack of mentorship. Interaction with seniors, particularly ISMP mentors, is essential to the first-year experience. Freshers rely on their ISMP for everything from academic advice to emotional support. A critical part of their role is to help first-years adjust to campus and deal with homesickness, all while allaying feelings of imposter syndrome. They do this by providing an external, more experienced viewpoint of someone who might have been through similar circumstances and overcame them. 

The importance of good student mentors cannot be overstated. Several preparatory course students that Insight spoke to remarked that they would have felt more comfortable approaching a senior student, preferably one who had gone through a preparatory course themselves. The SC/ST Cell recently started, in May 2022, a student mentorship program for UG and PG students. UG students from SC/ST categories, in fact, have the option to select a mentor of their choice, based on language, department, etc. This mentorship program could be extended to preparatory course students, and an attempt could be made to include mentors who have themselves been part of preparatory courses in the past. This could help provide an academic and emotional support system to preparatory course students.

Student Testimonials

Disclaimer: 

1. The experiences of students may vary across IITs and the year in which they completed their preparatory course. The testimonials are subject to the students and should not be the sole basis of judgement.
2. In some cases, we have preserved anonymity of the students providing the testimonial on their request.

Preparatory course student at IIT Jodhpur (2019-20)

The biggest issue I faced was the lack of information regarding the preparatory course. I was allotted a preparatory course seat when the JEE Advanced results were released. But I had no idea what that was. I mailed JoSAA and the JEE Advanced office but did not receive any reply. There was no clarity about the course policy, duration, and overall structure. Despite this uncertainty, I chose to enrol in this course. As I had secured a seat at IIT Bombay, I reported there. Later, I received an email informing us to register for the course at IIT Jodhpur as they were conducting it for that academic year. Things would have been smoother and more convenient if I had known more details about the preparatory courses earlier.

Devansh Jain: Preparatory course student at IIT Kanpur (2018-19)

Like most of the people allotted preparatory courses, I was clueless too. I had many questions but could not find sufficient resources to tell me the course’s aim, the difficulty level and the pass/fail criteria used. The scarcity of information made it difficult to choose between taking a drop, joining the preparatory course or seeking admission to a different institute. The registration process and document requirements were also unclear.

But I opted for the preparatory course and finally sailed through. The initial few days were difficult to adjust to. No orientation was held for us (preparatory course students) unlike first year students. I believe it could have given me and my batchmates a kickstart to our stay at IIT Kanpur. Even during the semester, it was difficult to keep track of stuff happening around us as we didn’t receive emails regarding events/activities that took place in the institute. Hence, we were unaware of most of the clubs and groups within the Institute.

I felt that the syllabus was undefined for most courses. We had to juggle between basic 11-12th concepts in some courses to in-depth ideas and first-year topics in others. Unlike first-year students who had additional tutorials, we had only class interactions. Appointing TAs for the courses would have helped with more accessible communication and support for students since most of them hesitate to ask doubts to professors. 

We had only four classes per day and two labs per week and I was usually free for a decent amount of time everyday. I felt that our academic load was light. However, the preparatory course did help me perform better in first-year classes like physics and chemistry labs. Adding a few more foundational first-year courses would have been more helpful.

A preparatory course senior assigned as an official mentor would better help resolve academic and non-academic concerns. They can relate more to the preparatory students than any other senior. Most non-preparatory course seniors are often unaware of the course or the experiences of students who went through the same. My experience allowed me to connect informally with the preparatory course juniors in my institute and guide them to the best of my ability. In the future, IITs could establish an official mentorship program similar to the one which includes student guides for the first years.

A piece of advice for preparatory course students

• By a preparatory course student at IIT Bombay (2021-22)

One of the preparatory course students at IIT Bombay expressed interest in sharing learnings from their own experiences, in the hope that it guides and reassures future students. Insight has not edited this section except for minor changes which do not change the intent of the author’s message. 

“Understand that you aren’t any less; no one is if they put in more effort. This is very important because in the crowd where people have scored so much more than you, you tend to underestimate yourself and feel depressed, and there happens to be a lot of comparisons. It’s going to be fine as long as you study consistently. It will be difficult in the beginning, but then with time, you will get the hang of it. Initially, you will feel that you are putting effort and getting nothing comparable back, but that will happen in the start, and that has to happen for you to be able to learn and grasp things quickly and easily. It’s a process. Keep the faith and keep working.”

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