Early Admissions at JKLU

For a very long time, I have been advocating that the admission cycle for undergraduate programs in the country should be advanced. There is no reason to compress the admission cycle to after the board exams. That does not allow students enough time to think about what they want to do, to visit the places before they accept the offer, and increases stress in general. And most parts of the world have a much earlier admission cycle. I even wrote a blog on this a few years ago.

I wrote that blog after my daughter received an admission offer in February from a good university. And that made so much difference in her life. She was totally stressed out, performing poorly in pre-boards in school, very anxious about the upcoming board exam. But the day she received her offer of admission, the life changed. She could focus on her studies, was always happy, and did exceedingly well in the board exams, way beyond her own expectations.

It was personal experiences like these that encouraged me to strengthen the early admissions program of JKLU. We, like many other private universities, would invariably open our admission portal in December or January, just in case someone happened to visit and apply and so on. But frankly, there was no reason to apply early. If you could get admission in January, you would be able to get admission in June as well. So why block your money.

We believed that even if students could get admission in June, securing admission early will impact them psychologically. They will be in a better mental state to try harder to get into colleges they consider better than JKLU. So we should make it attractive for them to to get early admission. (No doubt, it helps us too.)

Two things are different this year which make early admissions attractive.

First, our scholarships are significantly more liberal during early admission than later in the year. In fact, to be completely transparent, we have put out exact details of scholarships based on 10th and 12th class marks and performance in competitive exams on our website. I don't think anyone will find this level of transparency anywhere. To give an example, Let us say you have 90% marks in 10th and 93% in 12th class (assuming you dropped this year). If you applied before 15th April, you will get 75% scholarship, but if you applied after 15th April, you will get 50% scholarship. For those who are taking 12th class this year, you can still get provisional admission now and your scholarship decision will be taken after your school marks are available, but that decision will be based on the rules on the day of your application. So if you applied now, the chances of your scholarship after your results are out are much brighter. The detailed rules are available here.

Second, our placements, particularly in engineering have been absolutely fantastic this year. While most engineering colleges (including some of the famous ones) have a median CTC of Rs. 3.5 lakhs or lower, our median this year was about Rs. 7 lakhs. We do expect that this would mean a significantly higher number of applications this year and there is a good chance that our selection criteria may become tougher as the time progresses. And to some people, who could possibly get admission in early rounds may not be able to secure admissions in the later rounds.

Let me also take this opportunity to talk about our efforts to enhance inclusion and diversity. The criteria for scholarships are relaxed for students from states from where we have received fewer applications in the past (primarily north east and union territories except Delhi). Also for SC/ST, Physically challenged students. For girl students in some programs.

Visit our Under-graduate Admissions website to know more details.

Migration Certificate in Indian Universities

There is this strange document called a "Migration Certificate" that a lot of (if not most) Indian universities demand after admission. The previous university where you studied (or school) is supposed to give such a certificate which essentially says that this student studied in our university in this program from this time to that time, and whether s/he got the degree or left in between.

Interestingly, IIT Kanpur is one of the few universities who do not ask for migration certificate (unless something has changed in the last few years). Of course, some students would attach it by sheer force of habit. Also, when one of the graduates or alum asks IIT Kanpur to issue a migration certificate, it states on its letterhead something to the effect that Inter University Board of India and Ceylon had recommended abolition of migration certificate and hence it does not issue such a certificate. But it has no objection to its graduate (with details) in seeking admission to any place.

This recommendation of Inter University Board of India and Ceylon is from 1972. (In 1973, the name of the body changed to Association of Indian Universities.) IIT Kanpur abolished migration certificates in 1973.

And yet, 50 years later, most of our universities (including IITs) continue to seek such a certificate.

Why was it needed and why was it abolished.

The main purpose of the certificate was to ensure that a student does not take admission in more than one university. If the student has to submit the migration certificate in original, then s/he can submit it at only one university, and hence this was the way to enforce the rule. However, IUBIC noted 50 years ago that this is not so simple. A student can simply go to the previous university and tell them that s/he has lost the migration certificate and get a duplicate one. So the universities were anyway seeking an undertaking that the student is not studying at another university. So that should suffice. If s/he has been found to give a false undertaking, you can take the same action that the university would have taken if the student used duplicate migration certificate in two universities.

After a while, even this rule about studying in two universities got dropped. In fact, AICTE and UGC are actively forcing universities not to keep original certificates. The student should be able to seek admissions in multiple institutions and take a decision on which one to continue much later. And indeed, today, UGC allows you to have admission in one full time program and one online degree program simultaneously. So whatever limited purpose migration certificate had is completely lost today.

Why do universities demand this. Of course, guidelines or recommendations of AIU are not binding on the universities. So legally, I guess they can ignore this 50 year old guideline. (And may be, AIU has changed its guidelines in the last 50 years and IIT Kanpur is ignorant of such a change.)

My gut feeling is that this is looked at as an instrument of control, and a bit of revenue. Many universities do charge money to issue migration certificates, and if many graduate needs a copy, that can certainly pay for a few cups of tea. And if we are making money giving out this certificate, we better seek this certificate from others, since if the idea of not seeking MC catches on, we will lose our cups of tea.

I would love to hear from others about its utility, if any, and why universities don't stop seeking it.

For the record, we at JK Lakshmipat University (JKLU) do not ask for migration certificate from our students.