Birla Institute of Technology & Science entrance more competitive than IIT

Cracking the IIT-JEE may be top priority for most students, but the BITSAT is now the most competitive of all national engineering entrance exams in the country. An average of 68 students will compete for a seat in this year’s BITSAT, the online test for admission into degree courses at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, which starts on May 10. In comparison, only 54 students contested for a seat at the IIT-JEE 2012.

Based on number of applications received, 136,000 students are expected to take the BITSAT-2012 for admission to a total of 2,000 seats at the institute’s campuses in Pilani, Hyderabad and Goa. The exam will be conducted in 32 centres across the country between May 10 and June 9, 2012. On the other hand, 520,000 students took the IIT-JEE 2012 on April 8 to be eligible for 9,600 seats in the 15 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the Institute of Technology at Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.

The VITEEE, which was conducted on April 21 for admission into deemed university Vellore Institute of Technology, follows the IITs with 48 students competing for one seat. The exam was taken by about 150,000 students across India for admission to 3,100 seats. “VIT sees the largest number of applicants among deemed universities because of its placement record, especially in the IT sector,” said Jayaprakash Gandhi, an education consultant.

Next comes the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE), which was taken by 1.1 million students this year for admission into approximately 35,000 seats in the 31 National Institutes of Technology (NIT). The AIEEE score is also used by approximately 50 other private and government engineering institutions across the country, many of which have a majority of seats reserved for students of the home state and admit them by conducting their own regional common entrance tests. On an average, 31 students compete for one seat with the AIEEE score.

AIEEE is followed by some more private and deemed universities such as Manipal and SRM which have grown in popularity over the last few years, especially because of their superior infrastructure. Manipal recorded 27 applicants per seat this year followed by SRM with a ratio of 22 per seat.

Fewer seats gives BITS edge
Educationists say it is the increase in intake at IITs that has lowered its student-to-seat ratio, putting it behind BITS. In 2008, six new IITs were established and several courses added, which took total number of seats from approximately 5,500 to 7,000. Two more IITs were added in 2009 and the number of seats went up to 8,200. Introduction of newer courses and an increase in the number of seats has taken the number of seats to 9,600 in 2011-2012.

In comparison, numbers of seats at BITS have remained constant at 2000, making it more competitive. “The BITSAT has been growing in popularity among students since it was introduced in 2005. Over the last 2-3 years, number of applicants has increased enough to make the exam more competitive than the IIT-JEE,” says S Mohan, associate dean of admissions at BITS. The institute, founded in 1964, used to admit students based on their class 12 marks before 2005.

Since 2007, students are not allowed to take the IIT-JEE more than twice, slowing down the growth rate in the number of applicants. While 320,000 students took the exam in 2008, 395,000 took it in 2009, 472,000 took it in 2010 and 480,000 took it in 2011. This year, BITSAT lowered its eligibility criteria from 80% to 75% in the board exams making more students eligible. “We found that a lot of students were getting left out due to the high qualifying percentage,” says Mohan.

Over the last five years, number of students applying to the BITSAT has increased steadily from around 88,000 in 2007 to 123,000 in 2011 and 136,000 in 2012. The BITSAT is also completely based on the NCERT school syllabus which makes it more popular, especially among CBSE school students. ‘We discourage aspiring students from taking extra coaching for the exams and students who prepare well for their class 12 boards can do well in the BITSAT,” says Mohan. Students also need to obtain a minimum average of 75% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Math in the board exam to qualify for a seat, the highest cut-off among all other engineering tests.

Source: The Times of India, May 10, 2012

IIMs to tweak CAT to test knowledge, not just aptitude

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will tweak their Common Admission Test (CAT) format this year to evaluate aspiring MBAs more for accuracy and knowledge than aptitude in an attempt to “establish CAT as an Indian exam of international repute,” like the GMAT and GRE, according to CAT committee convener Janakiraman Moorthy. The exam, which had made a controversial switchover from paperpencil format to computer-based testing two years ago may become computer-adaptive, an international format where the difficulty level rises with each correct answer.

“Currently, it is a computer-based test, but once the format stabilises, we will have to decide if we want to make it computer-adaptive,” says Moorthy, who will supervise the exam this year. In the new-format test, students will get 140 minutes to answer 60 questions spread equally over two sections, down from the earlier three. Candidates cannot move on to the next section till 70 minutes are over, unlike last year, when they had 135 minutes to attempt the same number of questions without any section-wise time restriction. The section-wise time allocation will end race against time in the exam which always puts speed at a premium.

The exam will be conducted between October 22 and November 18 across 36 cities; Bhilai, Jammu and Dehradun being the new centres. “We have seen students spending too much time on a particular section and consequently find less time for other sections. Now, they will have only two sections with 30 questions and 70 minutes each. This will ensure that they concentrate on one section at a time. The new format will help students focus on quantitative ability and data interpretation in section I and verbal ability and logical reasoning in section II,” adds Moorthy, maintaining that there would be no impact on the results.

Earlier, the CAT paper would have three sections – data interpretation & logical reasoning, quantitative ability & verbal ability and comprehension “CAT was more of an aptitude test some 10 years ago when students had to solve 180 questions in 120 minutes. The number of questions has been decreasing and now, it is a test of knowledge. The new format offers almost double the time to solve one question,” says Gautam Puri, Vice Chairman and MD of Career Launcher. Students believe there will now be more of a level-playing field for students from non-engineering backgrounds.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), August 16, 2011

>B-schools can now choose entrance test

>The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on Friday made a minor change in its norms related to admission in postgraduate diploma in management and postgraduate certificate in management. Earlier it was said 50% of seats for admission have to be filled through state-level test for admission in management courses. Many institutes opposed this provision. However, AICTE has stuck to its ground and not acceded to the other demand of management institutes, which have been clamouring for freedom to conduct their own admission test.

AICTE clarified that institutes will have freedom to chose either Common Admission Test (CAT) or Management Admission Test (MAT) or examination conducted by the states for giving admission. Institutes will have to inform the state government about the test that it has opted for to give admission to students. Then, the state government will allot students on the preferences expressed by the institutions. Minority institutions, however, shall effect admissions through common entrance test as applicable to them.

Source: The Times of India, March 12, 2011

No MBA entry without a test

Pulling up states that admitted management aspirants on the basis of graduation scores, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has ruled that a student cant be enrolled in a post-graduate management programme without entrance exam marks.

Several states including Maharashtra, opened their gates to students who hadn’t taken any entrance exam. In 2010, close to a mind-boggling 6,351 MBA seats remained untaken despite the state government throwing all entry norms out of the window and allowing students who didn’t take the common entrance test to get into the Masters programme. Initially, there were 11,000 vacancies and then the government opened the gates to everyone. Despite that, thousands of seats lay unfilled.

The MBA programme, which has seen a major expansion with the opening up of new colleges, has also never before witnessed more than a few hundred seats going vacant. Currently, there are 24,995 seats in Maharashtra’s 366 management colleges. Across India, there are close to 400,000 MBA seats.

The notification comes weeks before a slew of management entrance tests are to be conducted, and AICTE has ruled that the MBA or the PGDBM programme would have to be two-year long. Although there were several suggestions that the AICTE allow institutes to offer a one-year MBA course, like in the UK, an expert task force ruled against it. To bring about some parity among management graduates, the council would develop a model curriculum for all management schools, as also fees charged by B-schools would have to be approved by the fee fixation committee of each state. Lastly, admission to the courses shall not start before 31 March of the academic year; the session will begin from June 1 to May 31 of succeeding year.

Source: The Times of India, January 1, 2011

Is Chandigarh becoming an MBA hub?

Is Chandigarh becoming the new Mecca for the managers of tomorrow? With nearly 40,000 engineers and 150,000 other graduates passing out every year from more than 200 engineering institutes and colleges in the Chandigarh region, the number of students taking the CAT, GRE and GMAT has dramatically shot up.

Nationwide, in 2009, about 250,000 students appeared for the Common Admissions Test (CAT) that would help them get into management institutes, including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The figured dropped in 2010 to 205,000. In Chandigarh, about 12,000 took the CAT in 2009 and 10,500 in 2010. So approximately 5-6 % of the total number of students taking the CAT from all over the country, are from the Chandigarh region.

In the decade since 1998, the number of students taking the CAT from here has jumped from 1,800 to a whopping 14,500. Academies that coach students to take competitive examinations, like Bulls-Eye, Career Launchers and Professional Tutorials, to name a few, are also flourishing. Bulls-Eye, which prepares students for the CAT, now has three centres in the Chandigarh capital region, and enrolled over 4,000 students last year.

“More than a 100 students on an average, from Chandigarh, have been receiving calls from IIMs across the country every year. If you compare it to cities like Nasik which are double the size of Chandigarh, this is significant. Students from Nasik, for last few years, has not received more than 2-3 calls annually,” says Hirdesh Madan, founding Director of Bulls-Eye. He says about 35-40 students from his institute receive calls from the IIMs every year. With three new IIMs (Raipur, Ranchi and Rohtak) added to the list, the number of seats on offer will increase, too.

The demand for management among Chandigarh’s students points to a sociological u-turn. From engineering and then IT, which were preferred career options a decade ago, students are now gravitating towards management as a more lucrative option. “Most jobs today are in the services sector. Banks and insurance companies are growing at a phenomenal rate, and require people at both the entry and middle management levels,” says Bulls-Eye’s Madan. Today students are no longer interested in government jobs.

Both youngsters and their parents are now looking IIM-wards. Shweta Gupta sees herself as a successful entrepreneur in future. This year’s CAT was her second shot at management, and she is anxiously waiting for the results to be announced in January. “Once you have an MBA degree, your standing in society goes up,” she says. “For our parents, too, it is something to be proud of and brag to relatives about. It’s not enough to do just engineering any more. One must also have an MBA degree.”

The infrastructure also helps. Unlike Delhi, where students have to commute over long distances to reach their coaching centres, everything in Chandigarh can be accessed in under 40 minutes. This may have encouraged more students to enroll in the coaching institutes. Also, with smaller B-schools coming up in nearby towns like Banur and Abhipur, which are 10-12 km from Chandigarh, students who fail to make it to the top management institutes schools, can now opt for those closer home.

Source: The Economic Times, December 28, 2010

100,000 students to take AIEEE online

The All India Engineering / Architecture Entrance Examination (AIEEE) goes online from next year. One lakh (100,000) student will get the opportunity to appear for the first online AIEEE to be conducted in April 2011 as a pilot run. According to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) officials, the idea is to scale it up to a complete online examination in a year or two. This will make AIEEE world’s largest online examination.

AIEEE is conducted by CBSE for admission to various National Institute of Technologies (NITs), Indian Institute of Information Technologies (IIITs), deemed universities and for a few state institutions. Last year, over 12 lakh (1.2 million) students appeared for the examination, making it the world’s largest entrance test.

According to CBSE officials, the pen and paper based test will be conducted on April 24, 2011 across 84 cities in India as well as in Dubai and Riyadh. Meanwhile, the date sheet for the online test, which is going to be conducted across select 20 cities in India, is yet to be prepared. Though sale of information bulletins will start from December 15 from various branches of banks, institutions and regional offices of CBSE, those willing to apply online can submit online applications from November 23, 2010. Each select 20 cities will conduct the online exam for 5,000 students.

Speaking to TOI, CBSE Chairman Vineet Joshi said: The exam will not be conducted over internet and it will be a Computer Based Test (CBT) in line with the likes of CAT. Like the CAT, the online exam will be conducted over a period of time, the datesheet for which is under preparation and we are waiting for the completion of registration of online applicants. But unlike CAT, the online option is not compulsory and the first 100,000 who opt for it will be allowed to take the test online. The rest of the students will have to appear as per our conventional method. We want to assure all aspirants and security aspect is a priority which is why we are doing a pilot run,” Joshi said.

Source: The Times of India, November 22, 2010

Plan to make CBSE engineering, medical entrance tests online

CBSE-conducted engineering and examinations could be redesigned and held if the premier educational board has its way. The ‘Centre for Assessment, Evaluation and Research’ which has planned to set up with a partner organisation on public-private partnership mode to carry forward reforms in education will have a core group which would go through this entire exercise. The group will fall under the centre’s Department of Research and Assessment and assume responsibility for developing and designing SAT equivalent assessment, according to sources. CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) has already invited expressions of interest for the partner organisation of international repute.

The department will be involved in creation of tests to track and report student learning. “This will be followed by the identification and establishment of core subject groups who will then continue to create, trial and support implementing of resources for school-based assessment,” a CBSE circular said. The department will also help schools to identify and train a resource person from either within their current group or from outside to assume the role of a trained assessment professional. This professional will be responsible for guiding new and current teachers of the school regarding the school’s assessment policies and resources.

The department will also aim at collecting student data from all schools to track and report on student learning and will particularly identify areas where improvement is needed or where there is inadequate resourcing, the circular said. The other two departments of the centre would be the Department of Professional Development and Leadership and Publications Department.

According to sources, the centre might also seek financial grants and funds from international agencies. The centre will be developed using a three-year phased approach and it is expected that it would be a well-established self-sustaining institute by the end of this period.

Source: The Economic Times, October 3, 2010

Plan to make CBSE engineering, medical entrance tests online

CBSE-conducted engineering and examinations could be redesigned and held if the premier educational board has its way. The ‘Centre for Assessment, Evaluation and Research’ which has planned to set up with a partner organisation on public-private partnership mode to carry forward reforms in education will have a core group which would go through this entire exercise. The group will fall under the centre’s Department of Research and Assessment and assume responsibility for developing and designing SAT equivalent assessment, according to sources. CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) has already invited expressions of interest for the partner organisation of international repute.

The department will be involved in creation of tests to track and report student learning. “This will be followed by the identification and establishment of core subject groups who will then continue to create, trial and support implementing of resources for school-based assessment,” a CBSE circular said. The department will also help schools to identify and train a resource person from either within their current group or from outside to assume the role of a trained assessment professional. This professional will be responsible for guiding new and current teachers of the school regarding the school’s assessment policies and resources.

The department will also aim at collecting student data from all schools to track and report on student learning and will particularly identify areas where improvement is needed or where there is inadequate resourcing, the circular said. The other two departments of the centre would be the Department of Professional Development and Leadership and Publications Department.

According to sources, the centre might also seek financial grants and funds from international agencies. The centre will be developed using a three-year phased approach and it is expected that it would be a well-established self-sustaining institute by the end of this period.

Source: The Economic Times, October 3, 2010