In yet another goof-up in the Joint Entrance Examination 2013, it has emerged that school boards and the IITs had calculated the top 20 percentile of students in different ways and this may have affected the admission prospects of a number of students.
Human Resource Development Minister Pallam Raju admitted Wednesday that the top 20 percentile as calculated by several school boards was different from the top 20 percentile calculated for the admission process by the 15 IITs.
JEE 2013 has two elements — the JEE Main for screening and JEE Advanced for the final IIT merit list.
In this format, 40 per cent weightage is given to Class 12 scores at the screening stage in JEE Main for determining admission to NITs, IIITs and other engineering institutes.
Students who clear JEE Main and are in the top 20 percentile in their respective boards were eligible to appear for JEE Advanced. Board marks have been 'normalised' across school boards to ensure a level playing field to students from all states.
While IITs have calculated the top 20 percentile of each board on the basis of the number of students who passed in that board this year, almost all school boards have calculated their top 20 percentile on the basis of the number of students who appeared for the board examination.
The HRD ministry, however, has concluded that the IITs cannot be blamed for this mismatch as they had clearly said in their admission notification that the top 20 percentile would be calculated against the number of successful students.
As many as 79 students have already been denied admission to IITs even after getting initial offers due to this mismatch in percentile calculation. In the case of Andhra Pradesh, Raju's home state from where most complaints against the new JEE format have come, the first cut-off was 89 per cent which had to be corrected to 91.8 per cent. This resulted in many students not getting admission.
The IITs, meanwhile, said that even though some students may have been affected due to this calculation mismatch, little could be done now as they had already closed admissions.
"Almost every school board has calculated the top 20 percentile on the basis of students who appeared for the boards and not on the basis of students who passed, as was required. There has been, in fact, a 2-3 per cent variation in the cut-off scores as calculated by state school boards and IITs. We have, however, admitted students as per our mandate and have been extra cautious as this is a new system. We have also now closed admissions so how can we accommodate new students at this stage," Prof H C Gupta, Organising Chairman JEE 2013, told The Indian Express.
Sources in the HRD ministry said that the state boards had not been careful while calculating the top 20 percentile and should not have gone ahead first and declared their cut-off scores in such a hurry. Still others said the school boards may have calculated the top 20 percentile in a different manner as they may not have understood the CBSE's guidelines clearly.
The HRD minister had Wednesday called a meeting with Gupta, top officials of the HRD ministry and CBSE, where this issue was discussed as were the complaints regarding the normalisation of board scores. Raju has been getting a steady stream of complaints on the normalisation process used to give weightage to school boards and arrive at the top 20 percentile across each board. Many students have claimed that there were serious doubts over the normalisation formula used and it had affected the ranking scored in the engineering exam.
The issue has also been challenged in three high courts.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/students-pay-for-jee-percentile-calculation-goofup/1143436/0
Human Resource Development Minister Pallam Raju admitted Wednesday that the top 20 percentile as calculated by several school boards was different from the top 20 percentile calculated for the admission process by the 15 IITs.
JEE 2013 has two elements — the JEE Main for screening and JEE Advanced for the final IIT merit list.
In this format, 40 per cent weightage is given to Class 12 scores at the screening stage in JEE Main for determining admission to NITs, IIITs and other engineering institutes.
Students who clear JEE Main and are in the top 20 percentile in their respective boards were eligible to appear for JEE Advanced. Board marks have been 'normalised' across school boards to ensure a level playing field to students from all states.
While IITs have calculated the top 20 percentile of each board on the basis of the number of students who passed in that board this year, almost all school boards have calculated their top 20 percentile on the basis of the number of students who appeared for the board examination.
The HRD ministry, however, has concluded that the IITs cannot be blamed for this mismatch as they had clearly said in their admission notification that the top 20 percentile would be calculated against the number of successful students.
As many as 79 students have already been denied admission to IITs even after getting initial offers due to this mismatch in percentile calculation. In the case of Andhra Pradesh, Raju's home state from where most complaints against the new JEE format have come, the first cut-off was 89 per cent which had to be corrected to 91.8 per cent. This resulted in many students not getting admission.
The IITs, meanwhile, said that even though some students may have been affected due to this calculation mismatch, little could be done now as they had already closed admissions.
"Almost every school board has calculated the top 20 percentile on the basis of students who appeared for the boards and not on the basis of students who passed, as was required. There has been, in fact, a 2-3 per cent variation in the cut-off scores as calculated by state school boards and IITs. We have, however, admitted students as per our mandate and have been extra cautious as this is a new system. We have also now closed admissions so how can we accommodate new students at this stage," Prof H C Gupta, Organising Chairman JEE 2013, told The Indian Express.
Sources in the HRD ministry said that the state boards had not been careful while calculating the top 20 percentile and should not have gone ahead first and declared their cut-off scores in such a hurry. Still others said the school boards may have calculated the top 20 percentile in a different manner as they may not have understood the CBSE's guidelines clearly.
The HRD minister had Wednesday called a meeting with Gupta, top officials of the HRD ministry and CBSE, where this issue was discussed as were the complaints regarding the normalisation of board scores. Raju has been getting a steady stream of complaints on the normalisation process used to give weightage to school boards and arrive at the top 20 percentile across each board. Many students have claimed that there were serious doubts over the normalisation formula used and it had affected the ranking scored in the engineering exam.
The issue has also been challenged in three high courts.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/students-pay-for-jee-percentile-calculation-goofup/1143436/0
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