Board toppers slip down on AIEEE list

Board toppers slip down on AIEEE list - Mumbai - City - The Times of India

Hemali Chhapia, TNN, May 31, 2010, 04.03am IST
MUMBAI: Scoring over 90% in the boards exams does not always translate into getting a high rank in an entrance exam. But some of the Std XII toppers were not exactly ready for the shocker on Sunday afternoon when the All India Engineering Entrance Exam results were declared.

Just a few days ago, Reshma Rao was overjoyed after scoring 97% in her Std XII CBSE exam. But her party was probably cut short as she ranked 1,427th in state in the AIEEE. “I scored 169 out of 432 and I think I have a chance to get into one of the National Institute of Technology (NIT). But I hope I will score better in CET and get through mechanical engineering at VJTI,’’ said the 17-year old.

For the AIEEE, conducted by the CBSE, teachers usually recommend students to prepare from their Std XII text books. So Ipsita Bhattacharya, who studied at R N Podar School in Santa Cruz, was shocked to find that her name did not even figure pn the list of qualified candidates. “I scored 91% in my CBSE Std XII exams, but did not qualify for the AIEEE. Even though the topics and concepts are the same for both the exams, the difficult questions of AIEEE pulled me down. I am now banking on my scores in the BITSAT (entrance exam for the Birla Institute of Technological Studies) and the state’s joint entrance exam,’’ she said.

Ipsita now plans to wait for the results of the other exams and then take a call on whether she should take a year’s break to again prepare for the competetive exams or not. “If all my scores are bad, I will concentrate exclusively on cracking the entrance tests next year rather than settling for an average engineering college this year,’’ Ipsita said.

Another student, Monil Shah, who had secured 87% in HSC also failed to make it to the AIEEE list. “I am now keeping my fingers crossed for the state CET results. I will also seek admission to a BSc course as a safe option,’’ he said.

About 10.86 lakh students took the AIEEE from across the country for admission to more than 150 engineering colleges in India, including the 30 (20 + 10) NITs. This year, 10 new NITs opened, adding to the number of engineering seats dramatically. So far, there were 26,000 seats in the 20 NITs and the number will also go up as this is the third year of the OBC quota implementation. More than 150 engineering college in the country admit students based on their AIEEE scores. Every engineering college in the city also admits nine students under the all-India quota through the AIEEE score.