Securing a medical seat in Karnataka has just gotten tougher, if the analysis of the recently released results of the Undergraduate Entrance Test (UGET) conducted by the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) is anything to go by.
According to the COMEDK, more than 19 students have got a score of over 170 out of 180. Over 300 have obtained a score of over 160. As many as 7,543 students have secured above 125 marks.
The COMEDK UGET2014 was held on May 11. A total of 47,085 candidates appeared for the medical and dental streams, and 43,179 for engineering courses. For medical and dental streams, 50 per cent score is compulsory in Physics, Chemistry and Biology (40 per cent for SC, ST and OBC candidates of Karnataka), but no minimum has been prescribed for engineering courses.
Based on these criteria, 23,794 candidates became eligible to participate in the seat selection process for medical and dental while 43,179 candidates became eligible to attend the counselling for engineering courses.
A COMEDK notification said that with the increase in the number of candidates by 5,628 from 39,607 candidates in UGET 2013 to 45,235 in UGET 2014 writing the test for medical and dental streams, the competition in this stream has “admittedly been keen and stiff; this has resulted in securing higher marks and better rank in respect of Physics, Chemistry and Biology papers as compared to previous years. This has also resulted in the test scores being tied and a number of candidates securing the same marks.”
While speaking to The Hindu earlier, A.S. Srikanth, chief executive, COMEDK, had said that in 2013 the cut-off rank for an MBBS seat was 2,995 and the student had secured 114 marks. But the candidate ranked 2,995 this year has scored 141, indicating that the competition is fierce. He had also said students from outside Karnataka may have got an edge as the questions for the entrance test were based on the CBSE syllabus.
To tackle this situation, the COMEDK had adopted some ‘principles’ for assessing the inter se merit: the principle of least negative response (number of wrong answers) in Biology, Chemistry and Physics; aggregate marks in Chemistry and Biology in the entrance test; marks secured in Biology paper of the entrance test; age of the candidate - the elder candidate is ranked higher than the younger one.
The notification also specifies that in case even after following the principles the test scores are tied, the principle of arranging the names of the candidates in the ascending order alphabetically is adopted.
