Sports Excellence Admission for UG Programs at IIT Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) is embarking on a new journey to admit students to her much coveted undergraduate programs, in recognition of their excellence in sports. The program is named as “Sports Excellence Admission (SEA)”. The objective of SEA is to reward and encourage students who have achieved a certain level of excellence in sports of their choice.

IIT Madras will be offering seats in each of its B.Tech. programs through SEA by the creation of two supernumerary seats per branch for Indian Nationals (as per the decision (dated February 03, 2023) passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Writ Petition (Civil) 891 / 2021, OCI/PIO candidates who have secured OCI/PIO card before 04.03.2021 shall be considered as Indian national, for the purpose of admission to IITs). The Sports Excellence Admission will be operational from the academic year 2024 – 2025.

The candidate should satisfy all the following criteria to be eligible to apply for admission to IIT Madras through SEA.

  • The candidate should have obtained a position in the Common Rank List (CRL) or category-wise rank list in the JEE (Advanced). The position in rank list may be in any of the categories for which rank lists are prepared, thereby ensuring that the benefits of reservations are not lost and the requisite academic level is not diluted.
  • The candidate should have obtained the minimum required class XII marks as per the eligibility criteria for IITs (Clause 11 of the Information Brochure (IB), JEE (Advanced) 2024).
  • Candidates should have obtained at least ONE medal in the last FOUR years of sports achievements in any of the National/International level competitions, where the points are allocated as per the following table.

The candidates are required to apply separately through JoSAA for admission to IITs (including IIT Madras) for other modes of admission. This portal deals with admissions for seats earmarked under sports quota in IIT Madras only.

Two seats per program will be allotted through the SEA; one gender-neutral and the other female-only.

The candidates who are eligible for admission through SEA, would then be given a score in terms of their performance/achievement in the sporting activities (see Table 1 below).

Table 1: Proposed Points System
CompetitionGold/Silver/Bronze/Participation
National Level35/25/15/0
International Level100/90/80/50

A separate Sports Rank List (SRL) will be prepared based on the total score obtained by the candidates based on their performance in specific list of sports mentioned in Appendix - C only. The seat allotment will be done based on SRL only. Mere presents in the SRL doesnot guarantee admission. In the event that there are candidates with the same number of points, the following tiebreaking criterion will be adopted.

  • Candidates with higher points at international level will be allotted the seat.
  • In case of a tie at the international level, points at the national level will be used for seat allotment.
  • In case of a tie at both international and national levels, seats will be offered to all the candidates with tie by creating additional supernumerary seats.

By this method, the candidate will be placed according to the performance in the sporting activities and thereby achieve the objective of encouraging excellence in sports. The admission process through SEA would not be through Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) portal, but on a separate portal operated by IIT Madras, where other IITs interested in offering seats under SEA may also participate.

Points will be treated the same for “Individual” or “Team Events.” Tournaments (International and National) in sports disciplines recognized by the 58 federations recognized by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS), Government of India, ONLY will be considered for the award of points.

The international and national events that will be considered for admission through SEA are listed in Appendix A and Appendix B in the order of their relative weightage.

The scores for each candidate will be calculated as follows: $$\text{Score}=\sum_{i}{W_i \times S_i}$$ where \(W_i\) is the weight of the \(i^{\text{th}}\) medal as shown in Appendix A or B and \(S_i\) is the points for the \(i^{\text{th}}\) medal according to Table 1.

For example if a person wins a third place (bronze medal) in common wealth games and first place (gold medal) in Khelo India Youth Games, then, $$\text{Score}=0.9 \times 80 + 0.75 \times 35 = 98.25$$

The score thus obtained will be rounded off to two decimal places.

The SEA mode of admission will be advertised/publicized through a link on JEE (Advanced) and JoSAA websites well in advance and have a time limit within which the students must submit their supporting documents in advance for verification. There will be only one round of SEA seat allotment; therefore, only candidates with verified documents will appear in the SRL.

Candidates will not be considered for further rounds of admission through JoSAA portal if they accept a seat through SEA.

It is noted that the difficulty level of playing at an international level depends on the kind of sport. To normalize the competitions across various sports and the number of participants in a given sport/game, the following methodology will be adopted.

  • Participation/Winning a medal at the international level will be considered only if at least SIX nations participate in the particular sport/game.
  • Winning a medal at the national level will be considered only if the sport/game is played by at least 50% of the states in the competition.

For the academic year 2024-2025, the SEA will consider the scores obtained by the candidates in the list of sports mentioned Appendix-C only to ensure the availability of facilities at the admitting IIT so that the candidates can continue to excel in sports.

Appendix – A (International Events)
Sl. No.Event NameWeightage
1World Championship1
2Olympics0.95
3Common Wealth Championship0.9
4Asian Games0.85
5World University0.8

Appendix – B (National Events)
Sl. No.Event NameWeightage
1SAF Games1
2Senior National0.95
3Federation Cup0.9
4All India Inter - University0.85
5Khelo India University Games0.8
6Khelo India Youth Games0.75
7Khelo India School Games0.7
8Junior/Youth/Sub-Junior National0.65
9All India School Games (SGFI)0.6

Appendix – C (List of Inter IIT Sports/Games)
Sl. No.Inter-IIT Sport/Game
1Aquatics
2Athletics
3Chess
4Cricket
5Badminton
6Basket Ball
7Football
8Hockey
9Squash
10Table Tennis
11Lawn Tennis
12Volleyball
13Weightlifiting