Normalisation Trolling Students Like a Boss

Guess everyone knows Tom and Jerry here.If not,brace yourself your childhood is ruined  The thought of tom and jerry union which never comes true in wildest dream even .Our ex HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal seems no less as his dream of combining all engineering entrance examinations is not fulfilled. Many deemed universities like BITS Pilani, SRM etc. refused to accept the model, also it shattered the dreams of many students who although cleared JEE advanced can’t get into IIT’s because of the newly introduced 20 percentile rule. This normalisation process although fucked many lives compared to the ones it benifited.For many engineering aspirants JEE Main is the synonym of AIEEE and JEE Advanced is of IIT JEE with a masala of Board weightage spoiling the both.Seriously?Guys are even taking a drop just to give improvements irrespective of thier score in JEE mains and Advanced!

For the first time board exams were given a weightage of 40 percent. It was not an easy task to normalize the marks as India is an intrinsically diverse country with state boards being no exception to diversity.No wonder most of the people are selected from CBSE this way. For optimal normalization a committee was setup which after a long discussion drafted the normalization rules. After announcement of JEE Main ranks students/parents are continuously complaining regarding this. Most of the AP board students are affected due to this normalization. The intensity of the trauma could be well felt for Andhra Pradesh board students for whom cut off marks to get seat in IITs is 91.8%.So does with some other state boards too.Well,Its not only about Andhra in particular but as you all know about the latest telangana state formation news it is going to effect them more in local college educational level too.I pity the MP board too equally.

A student in Madhya Pradesh, who scored 183 in JEE Main was expecting a good rank under 20,000 but when the result came he was in state of shock. He got a rank around 42,000. He did well in Boards too. This literally shattered his chances to get into any NIT.

“The normalization process is complex and unscientific. Instead of authorities putting out the normalization process well in advance, they disclosed it in May, a month after the JEE-Main exam. It has affected the ranking of many and thus affected their chance to get admission in one of the top engineering schools,” Garg said. “How can you play the game and then give the rules? It does not put all school boards on an equal footing in any way.”

CBSE on the other hand, has given no clarification and explanation for the same till date to explain their part.

However, the system that was eventually put into action and the one that was initially pronounced are poles apart. The actual system followed by the CBSE was that the percentile equivalent of the board marks in the JEE mains would be the factor contributing to the 40% board weight-age and not the absolute percentile in the boards itself.

For example,

Student Name: XXXXXX

Marks in JEE mains= 226 (a)

Percentile in JEE mains= 99.46 (b)

Percentage in the board exams (CBSE)= 90.4% (c)

Percentile in the board exams (CBSE)= 93.54 (d)

Marks obtained in the JEE (main) by a student who scored the same percentile (93.54 in the JEE main)= 129.6 (e)

Calculating the JEE main component= 226 (a) × 0.6= 135.6

Calculating the Board exam component= 129.6 (b) × 0.4= 51.8

Total= 187.4

Why we have a problem with it?

The reasons that make us strongly dispute this system are enumerated in the following points:

1. The students were officially informed about this ‘appalling’ Normalization system in the second week of May 2013 which was 3 weeks after the JEE mains had taken place and  a whopping one and half month after the board exams took place. This terribly timed relaying of information left the students helpless and dazed about how it was going to affect their results.

2. Different boards differ in terms of difficulty levels, number of students, checking procedures etc. The normalization process certainly gave an edge to the students taking their board exams from their respective states over those who took their board exams from Nationalized Boards.  In order to gauge the magnitude of difference between any two such students you may pay heed to the following example.

a) Student Name= XXXXXX

Board= CBSE

Board Percentage= 90.2%

Marks in JEE (main) = 267

Rank= Beyond 5000

b) Student Name= ZZZZZZ

Board= Rajasthan Board

Board Percentage= 90%

Marks in JEE (main) = 195

Rank= 4400

3. IIIT-Hyderabad, which is one of the most coveted institutes that admit students through the JEE (main) pulled its admission procedure out of this system. After having realized the paucity of credibility of the ranks allotted by the CBSE, they started counting the marks in the JEE (main) as the sole yardstick for admitting students into its deemed campus.

4. Almost a decade back the entrance to the IITs changed its pattern from partially subjective to purely objective. This decision was taken in purview of the fact that the subjective system could be flawed with bias and prejudice. The board exams, as we all know, are purely subjective in nature. The number of people who took the board exam this year was a humongous 9 lakhs. With so many copies to check one can hardly expect the teachers to be marking the exams without being victimized by the prejudice of ‘looking for good handwriting’. Now that the board marks are such huge governing factors, one can expect more calligraphists from the NITs than research workers!

The committee had a tough time drafting normalization rules and the controversies which followed further worsened the situation. An official said “Normalization is a headache; we are likely to revisit it once the minister is back”. However, Pallam Raju, HRD minister took a neutral stance saying, “We have no problems with the format giving weightage to class 12th boards,”

Keeping the controversies in mind the fate of ISAT seems bleak. Will the format of the examination change again or will it remain the same, well the answer to this lies only in the womb of future.

P.S : I wish IITJEE is reverted back to its old version asap! I have a bro giving JEE this year