Friday, May 29, 2009

Unmodernized JEE system...

I was amazed to find that JEE counselling is an archiac system whose only place in modern India is a museum.

Highlights of their 2009 rules for counselling:
  •  The main purpose of asking the qualified candidates to appear in person for the counselling is to verify their identity
  • After checking their identity and documents, the candidates will be asked to submit their choice sheets of courses and institutes.
  • After the qualified candidates have exercised their choices as per the counselling schedule, seat allocation will be done centrally, at a later date on the basis of the AIR-cum-choices exercised by the candidates.
Why is it so difficult to implement an online seat allocation system for JEE? For AIEEE, it might get difficult, but JEE with 15 colleges & 8000 seats, it should be much easier. Let me take a stab at creating a system.
  • At the time of result announcement, succesful candidates will get the link to register to a website where they can provide their preference institute & course.
  • The candidate can change his data any number of time till 5 days before commencement of counselling.
  • 3 days before commencement of counselling, the data on candidate preference is published to all succesful candidates, thus enabling them to gain an idea of which course & institute they might get.
  • On the day of counselling, candidates will gather 2 hours before their allocated time to the center. Their documents are checked and allowed within the "green room"
  • The "green room" is the location where the allocation is made. The green room will display real time vacancy positions across all open colleges to candidates.
  • 15 minutes each is allocated for every batch of 100 to make their decision and confirm their seat preference. Each candidate will be allowed to bring in 2 people to help him make his decision. 
  • Each candidate will be seated in the green room for at least 30 mins before he has to make the decision. Since he gets visibility of the information for at least 30 mins, he gets adequate time to make the correct decision. Also, the mock excercise before the start of counselling would also enable him to picture a close enough view on his allocation. 
I am sure there are much brighter ideas than mine for real-time seat allocation in JEE. The time has come for the JEE committee to open up to the 21st century reality rather than remain in the time wrapped cocoons of seat counselling.

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