India has 300+ exams. Unlike the US where a single SAT score can be used to apply for any undergrad course at any university, India has separate exams for each course. Hence 70 engineering exams, 69 management tests, 24 medical exams and so on. Additionally, several universities and colleges conduct their own exams. Private colleges like BITS, Manipal, VIT have their own exams. So do B Schools like XLRI (XAT), Narsee Monjee (NMAT), Symbiosis (SNAP) and Icfai (IBSAT). And the trend has caught on so in recent years Sharda, LPU, Manav Rachna and every other university has also launched an exam.
Additionally the IITs insist on having an additional exam apart from JEE Main i.e. JEE Advanced to prove that they are more selective than the NITs and IIITs.
While it's beyond my capability to examine the psyche behind introducing more exams in the system, the effect of a country hosting 300 exams in a 100 day period at an average of 3 exams per day AFTER Class XII board exams and university final year exams is clear: confused and stressed students with more choices than time. So what happens after students cross this trial by fire? Exponentially more confusion and stress. Why? The most dreaded two words in any Indian student's life: COLLEGE APPLICATIONS
There are several reasons why applications are the stuff of which nightmares are made. Obtaining forms by visiting bank branches or standing in queues leading to university counters, creating cheques and demand drafts, multiple copies of multiple marksheets to be mailed to different colleges and filling 3-4 pages of the same information each time in tens of different formats. While some colleges have tried to ease the student's pain by moving some part of this process (form, payments, documents) online to avoid students sweltering in the summer heat, this solves neither the student's problem nor the university's
And the university does have a problem: every university in India faces the same choice: either have an admission department that sits idle for 6-8 months a year when there are no admissions or get your highly qualified PhD faculty to do the clerical work of processing documents, reading forms and reconciling payments at admission time. Why do these processes thrive then? To quote someone wiser than me: “To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail”
Since professors, employees and a website are readily available, any solution the colleges think of is bound to try and use these – even if that is not the solution the problem requires. Because visiting 100 different sites to fill 100 different forms online and upload the same documents each time is not significantly easier than doing the same thing offline.
What students want is simple: a standardized, aggregated system. If I can apply to any job in India from Naukri.com, book any flight or hotel via Makemytrip, and pay any bill via Paytm, why must I process each college application separately? It's not as if Infosys or Deloitte do not have a Careers page or Taj Hotels and Indigo don't give you the option to book on their site. You can also pay your mobile bill via Airtel app or your DTH bill via TataSky. And sure, this works for some people. But for most, the convenience of a known aggregator which can be used each time wins hands down.
This is where CollegeSearch Online Form Sale comes in. You can apply to hundreds of colleges and universities, never have to enter the same information twice, a single document upload reaches every college via the cloud (no upload or download required) and payments are a breeze every time. We also helpfully remind you of what last dates are coming up and which of your applications need to be completed. Lastly, the UX is known and it's not necessary to familiarize yourself with the vagaries of each institute's website to get this process over with. You've put in the hard work studying for exams – applications don't need to be so tough. Not in 2020, not in a country where almost all students now have internet access and most exams are being conducted online. Not on our watch.
