DU: CUT –OFF THE WORRIES, FOCUS ON SELF BRAND

                                             

SRCC’s requirement of 100 % to admit non-commerce students sparked a raging debate among all stakeholders. The academia is not stunned, however. With number of seats less than number of applicants and initial screening process done away with, colleges say it is difficult to arrive at a process of selecting. When I spoke to Dr SS Sarin, Department of Commerce, Shahid Bhagat Singh College, he expressed that  the high cut-offs will ensure merit-based selection and that now one will claim there is back-door entry taking place or interviews getting biased favoring one student over the other. Academia’s concerns are on a broader scale, related to demand and supply.

The debate whether DU’s colleges’ high benchmarking is justified or not, is more relevant when it comes to ex-Delhi students. State Board students usually don’t score as high. This is especially seen in Jharkhand, Bihar and UP State Boards. This is because the Boards syllabus and answer sheet evaluation style traditionally have not allowed lenient markings. It has also been observed that Central Board students studying in these States and most others aren’t big scorers either, in comparison to ICSE or CBSE students of Delhi. Their old assessment pattern continues greatly influencing the overall percentage.

On the contrary, in Delhi, students’ scores have increased largely due to evaluating style of answer sheets. In such a backdrop, ex-Delhi aspirants of DU colleges find themselves at a disadvantage, especially students of Jharkhand, Bihar and North East who have traditionally migrated to Delhi for studies. The elevated cut-offs puts even the brightest rank holder of ex-Delhi nervous.In tandem with high scores, the cut-offs have also scaled up by an average 3 percent increase y-o-y.

It is largely a supply side issue. Studying in the tree-lined hallowed lanes of the North Campus or mingling with pulsating crowd in South Campus college is every student’s dream. Is it justified denying them their dream? 

Ministers keep talking about poor enrollment ratio in colleges in various seminars and forums. But they have done little to address the issue. The number of colleges under DU have still not expanded, the number of seats in the colleges have still not increased and  private colleges have still not have been brought under regulatory ambit; they have free reign to charge fee at their will and experiment with quality of their faculty student’s cost.  The State govts too are at no lesser fault. Why can’t they elevate the quality of academic institutions at their homes, putting a cap to students’ migration?

We all know that the admission recap of 2011 will certainly be played out in 2012, I only hope that we don’t see it, praying for a divine intervention. Actually, what remains under the human purview is: self- talenting. Students should read good literature, glean knowledge and amass wisdom from whichever source they can, so their brand stands out. The college can find place in the background.  

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HOW NOT TO FALL INTO A TRI-VALLEY TRAP

In order to avoid falling in Tri-Valley like trap, this is what unassuming students can do.

1.Find out who is the accreditor? A mere accreditation doesn’t mean it is a quality institution. Just as there are diploma mills churning out fake degrees, there are accreditation mills that sell accreditation.

2. Visit CHEA’s website:  http://www.chea.org/ It has a database of accredited institutions and programmes.  Apart from CHEA, a few websites have names of some non-accredited schools. For example this link has partial listing of non-accredited schools: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf.

3. The notion that suffixes like ‘.edu’(education) and ‘.ac’(academic) is for legitimate academic organizations, is false. Noted US-based writer John Bear also cautions edu being in the domain name. He says, ”There are many degree mills that insert ‘ edu’ into their domain name, but not as suffix for example. ‘schoolname_edu.com”.

4. Check if the attractive building or a huge campus on the college’s website is indeed the college’s property and not rented for a ceremony. One of the clever marketing techniques is false depiction of the campus.

5. Only virtual presence-Some fake institutions may exist in the world of Internet only. There is no real infrastructure and changing addresses is easy.

6. Get regular updates on dedicated blogsites like http://diplomamillnews.blogspot.com/ .

7. Check out the rankings is also a good way of knowing about credibility of an institution. Website of ‘US News & World Report’ and ‘Princeton Review’ is a good idea, suggests Vivian Doskow, a 2010 graduate student from New York. 

8. States like Idaho, Hawaii, Montana and California have low or doubtful standard academic institutions.

9.Some US states like Oregon gives a list worldwide schools unacceptable to them. For e.g., “Schools that are not Authorized to Offer Degrees in the State of Oregon” , check out at http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.aspx.

10. Alumni Descriptions: If the school boasts of an impressive list of alumini or produces a long list in its short existence, it should ring an alarm bell.

11.  US-bound students can also consult educational advisers at the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF). Says Adam J. Grotsky, executive director, “USIEF is ready to assist students and parents in their endeavour to identify US institutions where they will have a satisfying experience.” Details of their services to students are available at www.usief.org.in