The exams, conducted for admissions to undergraduate pharmacy, engineering and agriculture courses in state government colleges, were held from May 2 to 13 in 19 shifts. (Representational image)Amid confusion over percentile scores and glitches in the official website, the State Common Entrance Test Cell declared the results of Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test, 2019 (MHT-CET) on Tuesday.
The exams, conducted for admissions to undergraduate pharmacy, engineering and agriculture courses in state government colleges, were held from May 2 to 13 in 19 shifts. This is the first time that the State CET cell conducted exams online and used the percentile formula to declare results.
Some students had thronged the State CET cell office claiming that there were discrepancies in percentiles scores. An official with the State CET cell said percentage and percentile were not the same and claimed that students had not studied the percentile formula thoroughly.
“We are not the first ones to implement percentile formula, which was devised based on recommendations of a committee… The process of instituting CET cell’s own server as well as cloud is in the process. Presently, we are being served by a government certified agency,” the official said.
The official said Maharashtra is the first state in the country to conduct an exam of this magnanimity online and that it was inappropriate to compare MHT-CET with JEE or such other exams.
Percentile scores are calculated on the basis of the relative performance of all those who appear for the examination. A percentile score indicates the percentage of candidates that have scored below their particular score in the examination.
The website server also remained down for couple of hours, making it difficult for students to check their scrores.
The number of aspirants who had registered for MHT-CET this year had dropped by around five per cent, from 4.36 lakh in 2018 to 4.13 lakh this year. Only 3,92,354 candidates took the test. The examinations were conducted across 36 districts at 166 centres.
In Maharashtra, Nanded’s Adarsh Mukund Abhange (from SC quota) scored 100 percentile in physics-chemistry-maths (PCM), whereas Solapur’s Vinayak Mukund Godbole (open category) scored 100 percentile in physics-chemistry-biology (PCB).
In Mumbai, several students scored above 99 percentile. Dhruvi Rashmin Doshi ranked highest in PCM among girls (99.985 percentile). A student of Kandivli’s Prakash College, Doshi aspires to pursue engineering in computer science. “I gave preference for maths followed by physics. I solved as many papers as possible,” she said.
Mumbai Central-resident Navika Bhanudas Jatar, a student of KC College, scored highest among girls in PCB (99.992 percentile). “NEET is my main focus. I opted for MHT-CET for practice. KEM or Grant Medical College are my preference,” Jatar said, adding that she was awaiting the UG-NEET results, which are likely to be declared Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a State CET cell official said there is no clarity yet about the next step for admissions. “There is confusion about seats and implementation of quota. Let the government issue a notification, after which we will share the brochure,” the official said.
