System favours lass XII top scorers For NIT aspirants

chemistry

System favours class XII top scorers

From this year, all technical institutions, except the IITs, will give 60 per cent weightage to the JEE (Main) scores and 40 per cent to class XII marks. The IITs take into account only their JEE (Main) and JEE (Advanced) scores.

For NIT aspirants, the formula is quite complicated, says Rama Narasimhan, a physics trainer. “There is little chance that students or parents will understand it,” he says.

Crack this: the 40 per cent weightage for board exam marks will be further split in two. Twenty per cent will be the normalised score of the board, taking ranks into consideration, and the other 20 per cent will be taken from the JEE (Main) scores of the particular board’s students.

Experts who managed to calculate scores and normalise them based on the formula say the marking system will be beneficial to students who have scored well in their board exams.

 experts , says, a CBSE student who secured 471/500 marks, for instance, may get a percentile of 99, but his JEE score of 230 comes down to 213 after normalisation. On the other hand, a student with 99.9 percentile (485/500 marks) gets 219 marks after normalisation of JEE score though he may have secured just 170 marks. “The second student may end up in a better NIT and a better course,” he says.

The system favours those with good marks in class XII. “Until now, getting into IITs and NITs was solely based on performance in entrance tests,” he said.

Many parents have been seeking clarifications from NITs on the normalisation process.

“The basic eligibility in the JEE (Main) is 113 and the maximum score is 345. Many candidates will have 90-95 per cent in class XII. How they will normalise the marks of lakhs of candidates within this band of 233 points is incomprehensible,” said T. Sundaram, a parent.

The final merit list for JEE (Main) will be published on July 7 after the results of all 29 school boards, including the CBSE, are declared. “Though the formula ensures no single board gets an advantage over others, it will help only if the percentiles of different boards are made public,” says Mr. Narasimhan.