Board exams marks .. are they really comparable across various boards ??

      This is a question haunting me from a long time , since 2006 JEE cut-off (60% in 12th) decision, we all have been hearing that UP,Bihar state boards are tough to crack while CBSE/ICSE boards are piece of cake .This issue came to limelight after Sibbal's comment for increasing JEE cut-off to 80-85% in 12th standard ( he later took U turn on the issue).

      This issue was also recently  debated in Maharashtra for deciding admission criteria for Junior college admissions of non-Maharastra state board students.(Read ICSE-CBSE students) who generally gets quite better percentage marks and hence occupy top seats in Junior colleges (especially in Mumbai ) .
(Please click on the image to magnify.)



     Recently I came across this advertisement in newspaper , comparing top 1% marks across various boards ; you can observe top 1% in 12th for for ICSE in 2007(year when I passed out of 12th ) was at 92.6 % , for Maharashtra 80.2% , for UP board 73.2% and for Bihar Board it was 63.3 % .So it loosely translates to in year 2007 for 12th standard 92 % in ICSE were equivalent to 80% in Maharashtra , 73% in UP state board and 63 % in Bihar board !!!

     Take this with a pinch of salt as number of student appearing for state boards is usually quite higher then ICSE so these values are likely to have downward bias but even then across state boards the variation is really eye-opening.This statistics clearly underlines the need of having unifying board in India if we wish to continue with absolute comparison , as of now we can surely say that the absolute comparison of percentage marks across various boards is just not fair to all.


PS -- For those who are curious this table was taken from Inspire Scholarship advt.

Fourth Sem

As I have officially finished my intern (only presentation remained for next week ) and completely jobless now for next 10 days , I am taking time to go through 4th sem again ....

Acads : Most peaceful semester so far , with only 20 credits including 1 lab.4 afternoons were free . Courses were also better . Prof . Raghavan continued his fast paced copy paste lectures ( we wrote 8 pages in his first lecture of extractive meta :O ) . Economics was quite interesting subject with sleepy lectures.First time in IITM worked as CR :) . Probability prof (Sunder) shocked us with surprise test and from then onwards our first task after entering the classroom was to check whether TA's have blank A4 sheets with them or not.As grades came out it turned out to be better semester then previous three.

Saarang : Nothing great happened during Saarang ( not that I was expecting something great :P ) , tried Jamming,Paintball etc . Also worked peacefully as QMS vol attending all events I wanted . As mentioned in previous article it was not much different then 1st year saarang.

Drams : Continued with MMM's( Marathi Mitra Mandal ) play 'Vitthal To Ala Ala' this time we performed at 'Maharashtra Mandal , Chennai ' with almost same cast as last semester. It was quite good experience again .

Food : Tried SGR for a month . Dosa and Chapathis are best there. But absence of CSU stall and long queues forced me to go back to Himalaya . Started visiting Basera quite often ... Went Basera more then previous 3 sems combined . Apart from that nothing quite different then previous semesters . My love towards dosa/idly ensured that I keep on visiting Tiff's atlest 3-4 times a week . Also Ascendas visits continued.

Also other notable things in the semester were Hostel Nights , Astro Club Sessions , Hostel Elections , Shaastra Coord app. etc.

Intern : Initially thought of going to Visag steel plant then M & M but then finally interened at Bosch Plant in Nasik ( intern staying at home sweet home :) ) . Which turn out to be quite enriching experience. Plan to blog sometime in detail about intern experience.
It was quite good semester . Also finishes 50% journey for my BTech friends while I still have 6 semesters more. :) :( :-|

And finally I landed up in IITM ...........

Yesterday i got my gradesheet which declares I have successfully (?) finished 65 credits so far here . so that finishes exactly a third of my dual degree program (65/195).. so I think it's time to look back and retrospect how I landed up here in Jungles of IIT some 1000+ odd km from my home .. and believe me it's long story because I tried 'n' options even after getting my JEE result
30th May 2007 ... JEE result was declared at 8 in the morning .. I got a disappointing 2610 AIR which means I was sure of admission for btech but wasn't much hopeful for my dream IIT ( IITB :( ).My next option was IIIT hyd So on that day I was eagerly waiting for AIEEE results .. actually I was waiting for AIEEE results from past one week then . Throughout the day I must have refreshed AIEEE site for 'n' times.... finally gave up in evening and closed comp.At 11 in night one of friend called me and told me that results are out there also it was nt much good .. I was able to get CS/EE in home NIT/southern nit's but nt IIIT so that option was packed.btw before that I have given BITS and was able to get in both campuses but again not to the mark I wanted .. So finally options for me were UDCT ( if you have heard of this institute .. quite famous in Maharashtra),VNIT CS/EE , government college Pune (COEP) etc .. last one because I got good score in our state entrance but didn't cracked it exactly .. so the brainstorming lasted for almost 1 month .. (even when JEE alltment was done .. even after 1 month after results I was still thinking of UDCT then :D )
Even while filling JEE form choosing IITM meta wasn't that straightforward .I have considered right from MSc chem IITB to EP in IITG and upto last minute was hopeful about IITB meta but finally landed in iityam and in the land of idli's and dosa's :) .

Finally it's Over ........

Finally Saarang 2009 comes to an end.Now Opeth performance is going on in OAT but for me Saarang is over and I am back to my room (and jobless :D).Last 4 days campus was lively , energetic etc etc ... From tomorrow life will be back to normal (at least for me ).This saarng was pretty much was last saarnag for me .. dunno why .. but I was getting feeling of saarang 2008 again .Vodaphone was at the same place again , I didn't attend any pro-show this saarang either,Again I mainly attended speaking events and drams(again !! ) . Paint-ball and Theater fest were different experience though . Paintball was not that interesting (even though I led my team to triumph :D ) It was more like CS .However it was .. one thing for sure I enjoyed this saarang more then 2008 and got some useful lessons too ..

Adieu

Finally Mr George Bush is all prepared to leave his office with rock-bottom approval ratings . He has been criticized as one of the most unpopular president in recent times.With osama yet not in sight,Iraq burning,economy into recession his farewell is definitely not so pleasant.These cartoons I found on economist which shows the fate of poor(?) obama.
So let's bid adieu to our beloved 10 pointer(err 10 number :P ) bush and welcome obama who seems more promising then him.

Cribbing

I sometimes wonder why some junta cribs so much about anything and everything ..Right from some screwed grades / bad profs to high prices in tiff's . I admit that I am not the guy you will find dancing with joy always (infact never) but why don't you accept things as it is ... or do something really useful to change it or otherwise be OK with it (ठीक आहे attitude :D ).
If you just open student forum you will find guys complaining right from CCW to lack of cycle shed in Himalaya(:O even new hostels don't have any ) and from gurunath to insti bus drivers . Junta complaints about everything and anything .. I think our mess is quite ok , we get 24 hrs free electricity,20 hours free net access (atleast as of now :)).. but yet many times we keep on talking on why and how we landed up in the jungles of IITM.
I think I am cribbing too much about cribbing so I will end this post here :D.