MERIT MAYHEM AHEAD...

Cut-Offs Set To Soar, Thanks To Normalisation Of Scores & Higher SSC Marks. Merit List Toppers Could Have Over 100%

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: In the midst of an admission season that’s full of uncertainty, with higher-than-usual SSC scores and the state government’s sudden decision to put marks scored by all boards on par, you can expect a merit list that looks very different from the one put up last year.

First of all, the cut-offs on merit lists are expected to soar. Secondly, one can expect more SSC students to occupy top slots on college merit lists.

Thanks to the extreme uncertainty prevalent in the student community, at a time when even 90% doesn’t seem to be enough, bright students with high scores are going into overdrive, applying to half-a-dozen colleges to have back-ups. This will result in the cut-offs for the first merit list going sky-high.

For instance, while K C College, Churchgate, has 240 seats in junior college, the college has received more than 240 applications from students who got over 90%. So the cut-offs this year will be exceptionally high. And don’t be surprised if the student on top of the merit list has scored over 100%.

Thanks to the new ‘marks normalisation’ scheme introduced by the state government, if the toppers from any board applies to a particular college, their scores will definitely cross 100%. This is because the scores secured by any student will be divided by the average of the top 10 scores from that board and converted into a percentage. This means that if the topper from a particular board scores 99% and the average of the top 10 scores is 97%, the normalised score would give the topper 102%.

“I don’t know how the state government expects colleges to find out the top 10 scores in boards like the ICSE and CBSE, especially when they do not release a merit list,’’ said Ruia College principal Suhas Pednekar.

Pednekar said the normalisation scheme is a very superficial way of putting the scores from different boards on par, as the ICSE, SSC and CBSE boards are different, both in terms of content as well as assessment. Incidentally, around 10 to 15 years earlier, SSC students would routinely outscore ICSE and CBSE students. The result was that, during admission time, colleges would give ICSE students a good 5% more while preparing a merit list.

However, some principals feel that the new normalisation scheme will iron out the differences between different education boards. “In the last few years, the SSC topper would get 2 to 3% less than the ICSE topper,’’ said Kiran Mangaokar, principal, Mithibai College, Vile Parle.

ADMISSIONS SCHEDULE
June 27, 28, 30 & July 1: Sale of offline forms
June 27-30 & July 1-2: Submit forms. Online submission till 5.30pm, July 2 July 3, 1pm: Master merit list for online/offline July 3, 3pm: 1st merit list
July 3-5, till 5.30pm: Pay fees July 5, 5.30pm: 2nd merit list
July 7-8 till 5.30pm:
Pay fees July 8, 5.30pm: 3rd merit list
July 9-10, till 5.30pm: Pay fees July 10, 5.30pm: 4th merit list
July 11, till 5.30pm:
Pay fees July 11, 5.30pm: 5th merit list
July 12, till 5.30pm:
Pay fees

TIME FOR REFLECTION: Students seeking admission chat with one another at a city college on a rainy Monday. The first merit list, which will be out on Thursday, is expected to have higher cut-offs than before.