MH CET: New percentile marking format confusing, say students

A few students and parents along with Yuva Sena members visited the DTE to clarify the format

Following issues over the admission process followed for professional courses, the MH-CET marking system is now being questioned. The entrance examination that determines engineering and pharmacy admissions in the state, had a percentile format this year, causing much confusion among candidates.

The single window centralised admissions process for all professional courses in Maharashtra has failed miserably within a week's time. A new process for admissions is now being deliberated.

For the MH-CET, a few candidates along with their parents have claimed that the percentile system has not been clarified enough. Complainants met officials of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) with Yuva Sena members over the issue.

"Until last year, the system was crystal clear as it was either a total of marks or percentage," said Kshitij Save, a student, adding, "In the percentile system, the formula is not very clear and it also has several other constraints like the total number of students who appeared and normalisation of marks among all."

Rajesh Bangera, a parent, questioned the change, "When there was a clear process of percentage and marks in practice, why did they have to introduce a new process which is likely to cause confusion in the absence of a clear explanation around it."

Sainath Durge of the Yuva Sena, who accompanied the students and parents to the DTE, too expressed his reservations. "If there was confusion regarding this process among some candidates, it should have been clarified by the DTE before declaring the results. We have now asked them to provide complete clarity on the process of marking in percentile," he said.

Back to basics?

This year's MH-CET saw a total of 2,76,166 candidates appearing for the PCM (Physics Chemistry Mathematics) combination and 2,81,154 candidates appearing for the PCB (Physics Chemistry Biology) combination. After the single-window admission process started by CET Cell failed, the DTE is expected to start engineering and pharmacy admissions in the traditional decentralised system. S K Mahajan, Deputy Director at the DTE was unavailable to comment.

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