Ishaan is Young Medical aspirant qualified in NEET 2013 and has taken admission in prestigious medical college. He is Son of Mr Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghosh of CNN-IBN. I found this article to be very relevant and worth read for future aspirants as well as parents.
Thanks
Vikas Kumar
Ishan Sardesai, a student of Vasant Valley School, Delhi who took the country’s first NEET-UG on
May 5, 2013 narrates the chaos he went through while appearing for the common
medical entrance examination.
The 18-year-old goes on to explain why despite all the confusion and
hassle he’s been through, he’d still endorse its implementation in the national
interest of students.
I first got the news about the NEET-UG
when I was in class 11. My coaching class, Aakash Institute, shared the
brochure explaining how the NEET-UG was going to be a unified examination for
all courses in 2013-14.
Back then, we were happy to be the first batch to write the exam and witness
the change. We were under the impression that the NEET-UG was the one and only
exam that we will have to give and that all medical colleges would follow the
NEET-UG scores for admission.
We thought this system was good because it would allow us to prepare well
and focus better on one exam rather than appear for multiple exams at different
colleges in different cities.
However, just before the board exam began, between January and February
2013, a lot of other medical colleges came up with announcements of their own
entrance exams.
The Manipal University, CMC-Vellore, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical
Sciences, Wardha, and the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth, Pune are some I can distinctly
remember.
What made things worse for us was that the deadlines were fast approaching
and some of these exams also fell on the same day -- Mahatma Gandhi Institute
of Medical Sciences, Wardha and the Bhartiya Vidyapeeth, Pune had their exams
on April 23, 2013. This meant that I could only appear for one of the exams,
which was a crucial choice I had to make.
Most colleges did not share the information on exam dates at the time of
applying for it. The dates were announced much later -- after we’d deposited
the money and sent in our applications.
Just to let you know, each application form would cost us at least Rs 3,000
and the brochure which had information on the exam syllabus and other details
was charged separately.
This was the case with a lot of good colleges. So most of the times we had
to prioritise, take a call on which exams to give and which ones could be
missed, which was quite a task, especially since there was very little time to
think and decide.
Another issue was to understand which colleges were covered under the
NEET-UG, because every other day, we’d read that so-and-so college was opposing
the NEET-UG and was planning to conduct its own examination.
While all this was going on, we were surprised to know that there was
nothing on the NEET-UG website -- no updates, no information on colleges under
its purview or counseling dates. We did not know whom to approach -- my parents
who came from the media background could also do little to help me because the
official announcement always came late and took us by surprise.
We had to visit the websites of each of these colleges to find out about the
admission process and whether it had a separate entrance exam.
When we browsed the internet, we noticed that there were some sites that had
the information on which colleges came under the purview of NEET-UG, but again,
it could not be verified or validated because it came from bloggers or forums
that could not be trusted.
Since we did not know which colleges came under the NEET-UG, the fear was
always there -- what if we failed to clear the NEET-UG? What if a certain
college was not covered under this common entrance exam? What are the other
alternatives?
Most of us had to optimise our options and appear for as many exams to
improve our chances of securing a seat.
Preparing for so many exams was also getting difficult. For example, a lot
of my friends who came to know that Karnataka had opted out of the NEET-UG
wanted to appear for the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges
of Karnataka (COMEDK).
Some of them could not appear for it because the exam required them to
travel to
Bangalore
because it did not have a centre in Mumbai or in their city. Issues like these
disturbed our plans.
First, we had to focus on our board examinations which ended in March 2013.
In between preparations, we had to update ourselves, call up our sources,
friends in other cities to check if they had any new information on the NEET-UG
because so much news was floating around which added to our confusion.
The first NEET-UG exam conducted on May 5, by itself was smooth -- the
syllabus was announced on time and the paper also followed the chapters from
NCERT textbooks.
There was just one issue we faced at our RK Puram centre. Apparently, a day
before the exam, the Medical Council of India had mentioned on their website
that we would have to carry a post card photograph of ours to the centre.
Fifteen out of 30 candidates from my classroom did not have this
information. So in the middle of the examination, the invigilator asked us to
step out and get ourselves photographed against a white background. Although
the process took only a few minutes, we were distracted and lost that much time
in a competitive examination.
As for my personal experience, I’d appeared for the entrances at
Manipal University,
JIPMER, CMC-Vellore and
Ludhiana and AIIMS,
Delhi.
Among them, the only college that released the result was
Manipal University.
Usually
Manipal
University allows you to
take the exam twice. But this year, since the University delayed the result and
we could not afford to take a chance, we had to reappear for the exam as a
precautionary note.
Most colleges postponed the results because the case was pending in court.
The CMC Vellore which was one of the first colleges to opt out of the NEET-UG
also postponed the results to first week of July.
Only recently, I came to know that I had cleared the exams at ManipalUniversity
and CMC Ludhiana.
Still we had no idea which colleges we could enroll into through the NEET or
when the counseling would begin for the colleges under NEET-UG.
We were expecting this notification to be out by June, but we were
disappointed. The counseling eventually started on July 10.
The issue that bothered us through the last one year was that there was no
clarity of information. Even our coaching institute which usually has all the
information found themselves at loss. Besides, because of the impending court
case, everything was getting delayed, which added to the chaos.
What the MCI and the Supreme Court has failed to understand is the amount of
preparation this whole process of medical admission in our country demands.
For three months after my board exam got over in March, I was either
preparing or appearing for an entrance exam.
I think the last exam I gave was on June 2, 2013 and since the last one
month we were anticipating the results to get some clarity on which college to
join.
On the other hand, my friends who want to pursue law have to appear for just
one exam -- the Common Law Admission Test.
I wish the NEET-UG was that exam for us. It would save us students so much
time and effort.
In the interest of several students, I really hope they find a way to
implement it, this time, with better co-ordination and clarity of information.
As told to Divya Nair
