College choice to be easier for Maharshtra students

Mumbai: Here is good news for junior college applicants apprehensive of being burdened with an unwanted institute: The state education department plans to introduce mixed stream preferences.

This means an applicant can rank colleges in order of preference, irrespective of stream. For example: Ruia College, science; Podar College, commerce; NM College, commerce; and so on. The new system will be a boon to students who go by the popularity of colleges, but will not make a difference to students who are sure about their streams and do not lay much store by the ‘prestige’ of a college.

Last year, applicants were asked to choose streams, then list colleges under the respective streams. If science was an applicant’s first choice, she or he had to list 21 colleges in order of preference. If the applicant’s marks were not good enough for admission to a top college for science, she or he would thus invariably land in a less preferred science college, but not a preferred college for commerce, though the marks would be adequate for securing admission to such a college.

“By introducing the mixed preferences option, we are hoping students will not have to compromise on preferences,” said an education department official. “Most students feel if they don’t get admission in science in say Ramnarain Ruia College, then commerce in NM College would be a better option. We want to let students have such choices.”