As
a student, one’s learning blackboard consists of only two choices: take it or
leave it. It is an established fact that most aspiring engineers wish to pursue
their degree from an IIT. Yet, during the first round of JoSAA allocations,
atleast a dozen students gave up their IIT seat for an opportunity in another
institute. You may wonder as to how one reasons such an act of forfeit. And
what happens to those who have been frantically waiting to be allotted a seat
and are eventually left without one at the end of the course? The JoSAA
allocation process is almost over, and there is yet so much confusion and panic
among students. Has this new pattern brought relief to students? Or added to
their misery? A research about why people struggle for an IIT after all and how
do they tackle the hurdles to achieve that can reveal what goes on inside the
mind of an average student.
Bagging
an IIT seat is such a herculean task, that once the candidates have
accomplished that feat, they would not be willing to give it up easily. However,
there are students who are not satisfied even then, simply because they haven’t
got their preferred specialization or institute. Prof S.K. Gupta, Student
Affairs Dean, IIT Delhi, thinks, “Students come with the general perception
that IITs are better institutes than the others. Only 50% students may take admission
here by choice. The rest accept the seat either because of parental pressure or
because of the pride that comes from being a part of the institute.
According
to Prof Adrijit Goswami, Chairman JEE, IIT Kharagpur, “There are a few students
who take up a seat in NIT or other engineering colleges to pursue their passion
for a particular subject. Some students are even willing to skip a year and
reappear for the JEE.”
What
is more concerning is the misery of those who fill up incorrect combination of
choices in the online application form and are eventually left with shattered
dreams. This year, IIT Delhi, Bombay and Kharagpur have received the most
applications. Some may say that these institutes have a larger intake of students.
However, Prof Choudhary, Vice Chairman, JEE, IIT Bombay, thinks this has to do
with the fact that students prefer old IITs than the newly launched ones. He
says, “All old IITs are at par with each other in professionalism and overall
growth of the student.” The faculty and reputation of the institutes may be the
reason why most students, despite getting a lower rank, may have applied to IIT
seats in a specialization that would possibly go only to the top 100 or so rankers.
Now why would a student with a rank below 1000 choose IIT Bombay for Computer
Science and Engineering as his first preference?
Prof
Choudhary says, “The JoSAA website has put up admission data of previous 2
years which includes the opening and closing ranks of all IITs and
specializations. The students can access that data and calculate which IIT they
would probably be allotted depending on their ranks. So students should be
intelligent enough to make a logical choice.”
While
all such data required to make an informed decision was available online, the
students, especially those applying to NITs and GFTIs lacked the time to
understand and execute it. The CBSE ranks declaration coincided with the start
of the allocation process giving the non-IIT students less than half a day for
preparation.
Arindam
Bhattacharya, AIR 307, says “the application process itself was very confusing.
6 days were not enough to fill in our choices simply because it takes time to
research and understand the system. This is the first time students have been
exposed to such a procedure. I feel the allocation authorities should have
arranged for virtual or live seminars to effectively guide students in form
filling. The server issues further worsened the situation.”
The
question that still stands is that has all this travail benefited the students
in any way? Prof Choudhary thinks that this pattern of allocation, though
complex, is yet more beneficial to the students. “Earlier students would apply
for seats in 2-3 colleges at the same time and would then decide which
institute to finally take admission in. In this way a student with a higher
rank would ideally hold more than one seat, and by the time he withdrew his
seat in another college, the admission process would be over and those seats
would be left vacant. In the joint allocation process, the toppers can be allotted
only one seat and if they decide to not accept, then it would automatically be allotted
to the next deserving candidate. As a result more number of students have fair
opportunities to be IITians or NITians”
The
compound process may have increased stress, but in all, more students have now
fulfilled dreams of being an IITian than in the previous years. JoSAA has taken
over a month to complete the allocations and only 43 seats are left vacant in
IIT Varanasi and ISM Dhanbad. These seats will now be offered to students
who are in the preparatory round. So overall the number of vacant seats in all
the 87 institutes has gone down considerably and the process of admissions has
been regularized. Before implementing the joint allocation, all IITs
individually conducted a validation of the programme and each of them had
presented matching results.
The
glitch in the entire process, according to IIT Bombay, was the delay in ranks
by CBSE. Although, the latter cannot be blamed for that since it is the state
boards that provide their data to the CBSE. One solution to this would be to
dissolve the duties of CBSE and let the IIT committee take charge of declaring
the JEE Main ranks as well. This is however, a policy decision, not in the
hands of individual IITs and it would not materialize until the current joint
allocation programme smoothens out completely.
Since
this was the first year of the programme, it’s understandable for some
complications to occur. Hopefully over the years, students will be well-versed
with the system and coaching institutes will be able to conduct preparatory
classes. Thus, the benefits of the new pattern will be more apparent to the
student.