Mumbai
Edition, 17th July 2008
Mumbai:
Megha Datwani partied when she scored 90.14% in Class X.
She confidently applied to only one college, Narsee Monjee,
“expecting to get through easily’’. Now,
the admission counter at the college has closed, but Megha
is still without a seat. On Wednesday evening she went to
NM to find five names on the fifth list. Hers wasn’t
there.
“Are students only expected to score 98 or 99% to
get into college? This system is killing our children,’’
said her father Dilip Datwani.
He is not the only one angry and helpless. Hundreds of students
who are without a seat as admissions wind down, have been
going through a tough time facing rejection each time a
list is put out. Their parents watch in disbelief.
Most students said they applied to colleges based on last
year’s closing cut-offs. They had no clue about the
percentile system or its fallout, or they would have applied
to more colleges.
Trushna Mistri, an ICSE student, scored 80 percentile and
applied for commerce to four south Mumbai colleges. She
too is without a seat at any college. The story is no different
with Dev Marwa, who scored 74.42% (76.09 percentile) and
applied to six junior colleges. Admissions have closed at
all six and Dev has no clue what to do now.
“I was sure of getting into MMK, which closed admissions
at 72% last year. But the percentile system changed the
entire scenario. Now I am without a seat,’’
said 16-year-old Dev. His mother, who works in a nursery
school, and father, who is employed in a wine shop, do not
have the “lakhs to pay for the management quota’’.
If Megha’s fault was that she just applied to one
institution, Varun Nair (71.5 percentile) applied to almost
every commerce college in town—Raheja, MMK, National,
Sathaye, HR, KC, Jai Hind, NM and Rithambhara. But Varun
has also not secured admission anywhere. “I have no
idea what to do now,’’ he said.
