IIT JEE 2012: Trends in course allotment

After giving your best in IIT JEE, most of you must be anxiously waiting for the final round of course allotment. I come across lot of questions “ My IIT JEE 2012 AIR is XXXX, will I get YYY branch in ZZZ location?”, “My course allotment has not changed in second round. Why?”, “I have got XXX branch, will I get another branch in same location?”,” I have got a branch of my choice, can I freeze it?”, “ Are closing rank going to improve this year?”.
Though you may not get all the answers here, but I am sure you will be better informed and prepared to face the subsequent rounds.
Some of the significant trends in IIT JEE 2012 allotment at end of second round as compared to previous year (IIT JEE 2011):

1. Last year (IIT JEE 2011), more than 600 candidates, who did not get any seat at the end of first round, managed to get seats in second round. This year, this number stands at little more than 400. There is about 33% decline. This trend can be attributed to couple of factors, in my opinion. First, IIT JEE 2012 allows candidates to withdraw their seat by July 3^rd, 2012. This will make them eligible for IIT JEE 2013 and they will get registration fees refund (after minor deduction). This is a change from previous year and seems to have played a role. Second, there have been confusion about the format of IIT JEE 2013. Candidates want to play safe and want to hold on. It could be combination of both and/or some other factors. If first factor is predominant one, one should see more new seat allotments in third round. (Last year, more than 300 candidates, who did not get any seat in first two rounds, got a seat at the end of third round).
2. Closing ranks: Location wise: There is an interesting observation on this front, though it is too early to compare closing ranks as final round is not yet over. If we classify IITs into two buckets: Major IITs -(Bombay, Delhi, Roorkee, Kanpur, KGP, Madras, GUW, Varanasi) and New IITs (Rest except ISM), the trends are more distinct. Closing ranks have declined across most of the major IITs except IIT-BHU. IIT BHU has been a major gainer (due to obvious reasons), while Roorkee and GUW have held on the previous year (might decline after final round). However, decline of closing ranks across most major IITs have been observed. There appears to be a trend that most of new IITs are gaining acceptance and have “marginally” improved their closing ranks at this point. Ropar and Indore stand out from others.
3. Closing ranks: Branch wise: At the end of second round, pure science disciplines (Math, Physics, Chemistry) have shown improvement in their closing ranks showing greater acceptability. Apparently, introduction of B.S. courses (in place of M.Sc. Int.) in some of IITs have started to pay off. Engineering streams seems to show decline in closing ranks in general. Metallurgy, Aeronautics, Chemical Engg., Biotech and Naval Architecture have shown downward trend in term of popularity if one goes by closing ranks. Computer Science, as always is popular and shown improvement this year as well. Surprisingly, Architecture seems to be bouncing back.
4. Location wise preference seems to be more distinctly evident from the data of IIT JEE 2012. Therefore, branch wise changes in closing ranks may be modulated by location preferences and one should be careful in analyzing it with only single dimension. Overall, there could be decline in closing ranks at the end of final round as compared to previous year and it would be best to analyse more after final round is over.
5. I have not included ISM, Dhanbad in this analysis. There is no intended bias but the changes in trends of ISM are very volatile in first two rounds and it is expected to continue. Therefore, it would be best to wait for the final round.

This analysis is based on publicly available data and all attempts have been made to be accurate and unbiased. However, any inadvertent error or unintended bias can not be ruled out. Therefore you are advised to plan your career/take your decisions based on your discretion and convenience.
I plan to compare first two rounds of IIT JEE 2012 course allotment next time. Stay tuned- stay ahead, always…
-Sandeep
(Originally published in alwaysaheadblog.wordpress.com in June 2012.)