Have Nowhere to Go : Thanks to the Percentile System in Maharashtra

If in case you are planning to study engineering at a top institute in Maharashtra, then you had better make sure that you do the two years of junior college through the state board.

Over 8,000 engineering aspirants who passed the ISCE or CBSE exam have learned this lesson albeit a little too late now. They missed out on admission after they were ranked lower than state board students on the merit list, despite of them scoring similar marks in the exams.

The final list declared on Thursday by the DTE (Directorate of Technical Education), which supervises admissions to professional institutes, put up this shocking list that has resulted in considerable discontent among students.

THE DTE used a composite formula, it seems, which was derived from the percentile of JEE score and the class 12 marks of physics, chemistry and math with a 50- 50 weightage.

An ISC student exclaimed, “I scored 270/300 marks in class 12 (in PCM), which corresponds to a percentile of 87. 34, whereas an HSC candidate scoring 270 marks got a percentile of 99. 37 and a CBSE candidate got 91. 14. This has brought down my final score and ranking by 2, 000 points!”

The percentile gives a relative position of a candidate among those who took the examination. The number of ISC and CBSE candidates is far less than HSC candidates. Nonetheless, the number of high scorers are higher among ISC and CBSE candidates.

SK Mahajan, the director of technical education explained- “We have tried to do justice to all candidates through the percentile system, thus normalizing the marks across the boards.”

He said he had received just 8 complaints from among 4, 700 CBSE candidates and nearly 3, 500 ISC candidates seeking admission to engineering institutes.

Mahajan rejected the allegation of undue advantage to state board candidates as he said, “The formula was set by the state government. Similar normalization method is used by CBSE too for JEE Main since last year. The state of Gujarat is also following the same system.”

Unsuccessful applicants have begun to do the rounds of private colleges, thus seeking admission through the management or minority quota.

Seema Agrawal, mother of a CBSE student said that the state government has made it clear that if you want to get admission to a good engineering college, then don’t study in CBSE or ISC schools.

Percentiles for a score of 270 – The aggregate in PCM – on the DTE website:
HSC – 99.37372291
CBSE – 91.14173080
ISC – 87.34185825

The composite score = 0. 5 x Jo (JEE percentile) + 0.5 x P (Board percentile)
Jo (JEE percentile) = Number of students who scored marks less than the candidate/total number of students who appeared for JEE Main 2014 Paper- 1 *100

P (Board percentile) = Number of students who scored marks less than the candidate in the respective board exam 2014/total number of students appeared for chemistry, physics, and math in the respective board exam in March 2014 * 100