Low scores? Students don't care

In today’s world of nerve-racking competition, Hrishikesh Deshmukh secured only 72% in the higher secondary certificate (HSC) exams of the state board, results of which were announced on Friday — a score which would make anyone feel like a failure.

But Deshmukh is anything but depressed, since to him, his scores in the joint entrance examination of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT-JEE) and the Maharashtra common entrance test (MHT-CET) are the ones that really matter.

“The HSC score does not mean much since I have stood 390 in IIT-JEE, and am confident of a good MHT-CET result,” the engineering aspirant said.

Deshmukh echoes a dominant trend among students these days, an increasing number of whom are paying little attention to HSC exams, and are instead concentrating on entrance tests for medicine and engineering colleges, since professional courses have their own entrance tests.

“I am waiting for the state CET and AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination) results. I am also trying for admission into IITs,” said Devesh Kedia, who secured 81.3% in HSC exams.

Though Std XII results for HSC, ISC and CBSE exams are now out, several students are more worried about the entrance exams scores. A college seat for them is merely a back-up plan. “I have appeared for JEE, CET and AIEEE,” said Omkar Adarkar, a student of Ruparel College, Matunga, who scored a mere 52% in HSC.

Janan Ravi, who scored 94.33%, is also awaiting the AIEEE and CET results. “For me, both the Std XII and entrance test results were important. But it is true that if you ultimately want to purse engineering or medicine, it’s your performance in the entrance exams that matter,” he said.

Praveen Tyagi of IITian’s PACE, said, “To stop HSC for becoming redundant, colleges need to adopt a hybrid model of teaching where colleges will train students for competitive exams like JEE and MHT-CET along with the HSC exams.”