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.