MH-CET Results: Likely rise in cut-off has students worried

When the DMER declared the marks on June 1, Chaitrali Shinde (18), a student, saw she had scored 181 out of 200. She was expecting a rank of 700 but on Friday, she found her rank was, 151. “I am hopeful of securing a seat in a government college but I am quite sure I won’t make it to a Mumbai college,” she said.

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Dr Keyur Cholera, a teacher and medical professional, said in the past decade, government colleges, particularly the ones in Mumbai, closed admissions within the top 500 students. “Last year, the cut-off was 182, but since this year students have scored higher, the cut-off could be as high as 187,” he said.

Cholera said that among the three zones — Vidarbha, Marathwada and Rest of Maharashtra (RoM) — an unusually large number of students from Vidarbha and Marathwada fared better than those from RoM. “Had it been a gradual rise, we could have attributed it to better educational infrastructure and coaching institutes,” said Cholera.

He also said the rise in the number of high-scorers could be because of the additional weightage marks granted to students for sports and NCC.

A total of 919 students were granted additional marks. However, parents said the additional marks gave some students an advantage over the others.

“In a competitive exam, students work hard for each mark. It is unfair to grant extra marks to certain students,” said Patil.

According to Cholera, 15 students from the top 200 rankers had been awarded extra marks. “It is unfair to students who have studied in colleges that do not have such programmes in their curriculum. A student who gets eight grace marks could go up by a 1,000 ranks,” said Cholera.

Chaitrali’s mother, Dr Kalpana Shinde, too said that the additional weight-age marks were unfair on students.