I like certain things in this years admissions process. On the top of my "I Like" list is the admissions to the Dual Degree program for people who have cleared the Math/Informatics Olympiads at the national level. I don't know how many people will apply as most people in this category get admitted to some IIT anyways. For any student who attends a national camp at the Math/Physics/Informatics Olympiads we should
1. Allow them to join any course they want at IIIT
2. Give them a 100% tuition fee wavier
3. Have no limit on the number of such students we admit.
Whatever financial implications this may have will be more than made up for in other ways. This might mean that we would get to see more people like I.V. Aprameya Rao and Anshuman Singh and Nadeem ( Yes they are examples of people who have participated in national Olympiad camps) on campus. Even if we manage to admit say 5 such students every year, we would eventually have 20~30 of them on campus and that would make a great difference to the atmosphere at IIIT.
I am also pleased that with the different avenues of entry IIIT is considering to look at while admitting CNS dual degree students. The CNS course is slightly different from a regular B.Tech course and perhaps it calls for special admission procedures. The list of Olympiads/Scholarships listed there is quite long and I am hopeful that some of those people who join will be pretty enthusiastic about course. Personally I don't agree with the philosophy of shoving kids into a particular stream without letting them explore other areas of study. I don't agree with either the CNS or the CNL dual degree courses.
There is also this thing to admit foreign students. I haven't a clue about SAT scores and really don't know how that is going to work out. I just hope that we don't end up admitting some yahooo's who think that they own the campus.
Also CBSE and CCB deserve a kick. Their sheer stupidity has forced us into having our own counseling. This also pretty much completely screws up the idea of a national time table for all colleges (Which I thought was a nice idea !) Kapil Sibbal if you read this, fire whoever is running CCB!
I have spent some time looking the dynamics of admissions in US universities. And Indian Universities. The major difference I can see is a lack of diversity on campus in Indian universities. Almost everybody here doesn't have very many skills(of note) other than being good at Phy-Chem-Math. Yes the odd person can sing and paint and dance and some more people can play something but nothing significant. I think that makes for very poor exposure and a sense of elitism that only people really good in PCM have a right to study Engineering at the best places in India. I would love to see IIIT admit kids who are really good at say some arts or sports or something else. Of course we also have to make sure that they have a minimum academic standard as well (perhaps a mixture of 10th+12th Marks + AIEEE scores or whatever) so that they can successfully complete the course. I don't think that studying engineering should be the preserve of only the very insanely nerdy PCM kids. Any sincere kid who does well at school is good enough to go through the curriculum.
IIIT has already been very bold with the present initiatives and perhaps this idea comes ahead of it's time. However I suspect that this is something that the think tank at IIIT has had at the back of their mind. I think having a center like CEH is a step in that direction. The problem with that approach is that you are going to have to deal with kids who have a mindset where joining a place like CEH is simply "not an option". Lets admit some different people for a change !
PS : I don't understand why IIIT has asked people to register before the AIEEE results are declared. Before the results are out a lot of people would like to believe that they have a chance. I can imagine around 6~7 thousand people registering at the very least. IIIT might as well have had people register after the results were declared or at least charged them later. I am not aware of the logistics of doing something like this (I assume it would not be trivial), but if they have done this to make some money then it is indeed very naughty.
6 comments:
May be IIIT wants to know how many people will actually choose IIIT, given that they are unaware of any other options that they might have.
Man! this is so weird.. you praising IIIT's policy.. :D
Btw, olympiad thing is great.. but you know a student like that in general doesn't care if IIIT is good.. they want to be at the best places they can get into..
And, regarding the diversity thing.. yes, having varied talents is a good thing.. but to put aside sheer math-phy-chem talent/ability to give weightage to arts talent is just plain stupid. IIIT should be known for versatile ppl but certainly not at the cost of losing 'the place for smart kids' image. Then, we'd be another JNU/DU/whatever.
I think the point that I am trying to make is that people who are good at PCM are not necessarily the smartest. We have seen enough evidence of that all around us.
I'm not saying we ditch merit and AIEEE ranks, but just admit some proportion of students who have slightly inferior ranks but are good at other stuff as well. I think IIIT can "coach" an above average kid into being a very good student.
The problem with other places that have quotas for such things is that once they admit people they usually drop standards to ensure such students pass. I don't think that will be a problem here.
@Bharat:People from "JNU/DU/whatever" in general do well in life! Only that they may not earn 10 lpa in their lifetime, but that does not necessarily imply they are failures.
@Raina, oh u got me all wrong. I personally know ppl frm JNU/DU who are doing great in life, and, I think we all know ppl from there who are big names in our country.
What I meant to say is that even though IIIT should try to emulate them in terms of diversity, technical excellence should be the firs priority, for which JNU/DU is not known.
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