Sep 02 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi) 88% crack IIT-JEE in the first attempt Hemali Chhapia Mumbai:   The entrance exam to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has never had so many candidates who cracked the gruelling exam in the first attempt: 88% candidates qualified in the first shot this year.Last year, 69.6% of aspirants qualified after taking the IIT-JEE (advanced) for the first time. Another 27.2% had to take the test again before they could walk past the gates of the IITs. This year, merely 12% students qualified after taking the exam for the second time.Since the last two years, the IITs have only allowed candidates two attempts. “We are realizing that by restricting the number of attempts, the IITs are getting students who are very welltrained. I am not sure if it is putting more pressure on students, but students are a lot better prepared,“ says an IIT director. Slicing the statistics further shows that of the 9,795 students currently sitting in the first-year classrooms across IITs, the count of those who cracked the JEE (advanced) in the first attempt stands at 6,725 (68.65%). Data till 2007 shows about 10% of the total aspirants were taking the JEE for the third time (or more). But with more students taking the test seriously, JEE-2006 saw the share fall as 43.5% candidates qualified in their first try, as compared to JEE-2005 in which only 28.49% got through the first time around. In fact, a dean from IITMadras believes these statistics are a result of the changing profile of those who are making it to the IITs. “Students who are now walking into the IITs are mostly from cities and from middle-class households who can afford to pay for tuitions,” he says. Most of those who qualified—20,636 or 76%—are from urban centres, 3,862 (14.22%) are from towns, and 2,654 (9.77%) are from villages. Again, making for a sharp economic divide on campus, two large cohorts of students in the current batch are from the upper-middle classes and from the lowerincome groups. This year, 3,586 or 13.2% who qualified disclosed that the annual family income is over Rs 8 lakh. Three years ago, data revealed that about 9.3% of the qualified candidates had an annual family income of over Rs 10 lakh. For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com