IIT Madras Introduces ‘Culture Excellence Admission'

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has become the first IIT in the country to introduce ‘Fine Arts and Culture Excellence’ (FACE) admission to undergraduate programmes from the academic year 2025-26. The objective of FACE admission is to reward and encourage students who have achieved excellence in fine arts and culture.

Two seats per programme will be allotted in all BTech and BS programmes of IIT Madras under this scheme. Of the two seats in each programme, one seat will be female-only and the other will be gender-neutral.

IIT Madras will be offering seats in each of its undergraduate programmes through FACE admissions by creating two supernumerary seats per programme for Indian Nationals and Overseas Citizens Of India/Persons of Indian Origin (OCI/PIO) candidates who have chosen to be treated at par with Indian nationals at the time of JEE (Advanced) 2025 registration  will be eligible for FACE admission.

Addressing a press conference in the campus on Tuesday, 17 December 2024, Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “IIT Madras is embarking on a new journey to admit students to her much-coveted undergraduate programmes in recognition of their excellence in fine arts and culture. The candidates are required to apply through the IITM-FACE admission portal (https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/face) for consideration for admission under fine arts and culture excellence to IIT Madras.”

The admission process through FACE would not be through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) portal but on a separate portal (https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/face) maintained by IIT Madras where other IITs interested in offering seats through FACE may also participate. For the academic year 2025-2026, only IIT Madras is offering seats through Fine Arts and Culture Excellence admission.

The IITM-FACE portal is to be used exclusively for admission to various academic programs at IIT Madras under FACE admission only. The candidates are required to apply separately on JoSAA portal for the academic programs at IIT Madras and/or other IITs where the seats are offered through JoSAA.
 

Eligibility criteria
The candidates should satisfy all the following criteria to be eligible to apply for FACE admission to IIT Madras:
 

The candidate should be an Indian National (by birth or naturalisation) or OCI/PIO candidate who has chosen to be treated at par with Indian Nationals at the time of JEE (Advanced) 2025 registration.
 

The candidate should have qualified in JEE (Advanced) 2025 and have obtained a rank in the Common Rank List (CRL) or category-wise rank list in JEE (Advanced) 2025. The position in the 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 requirement is not diluted.

The candidate should have obtained the minimum required marks in Class XII as per the eligibility criteria for IITs (Clause 26 of the Information Brochure (IB), JEE (Advanced) 2025).

Candidates should have received recognition in at least one of the select categories in recognition of their excellence in fine arts and cultural activities.
 

Application, ranking and seat allotment process
The candidate should be ready with all the necessary documents before starting their application on the following portal - https://jeeadv.iitm.ac.in/face.

A score will be assigned to each candidate based on their fine arts and culture excellence as per the category mentioned in Table. A separate FACE Rank List (FRL) will be prepared based on the total score obtained by the candidates based on their performance in various fine arts and culture events/awards/scholarships.

The list of eligible awards/scholarships/recognitions mentioned in Appendix - A will only be considered for the preparation of FRL. The seat allotment will be, done in multiple rounds, based only on the FACE Rank List (FRL). Mere presence in the FRL does not guarantee admission.

After a seat is allotted to a candidate in any round, the candidate is given the option to ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’ the allotted seat and pay the seat acceptances fee, before a specified deadline for the the same. If the candidate rejects the seat, (s)he will be removed from the FACE seat allotment process permanently. If the candidate accepts the seat, they should (1) pay the Seat Acceptance Fee before the deadline specified and (2) choose one of the two options – ‘Freeze’ or ‘Slide’ similar to the case of the JoSAA admission process. In addition, they should submit proof of withdrawal/exit from JoSAA 2025.