Students shun city colleges, look to IITs, IIMs and universities abroad

Updated on: Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This year, only a handful of class XII CBSE students will be applying to state-run degree colleges in Mumbai. While high-scorers are more nervous about their performance in competitive entrance exams to Indian Institutes of Technology and Management, which they say will decide the course of their future careers, others have applied to Delhi University and institutions abroad.

Avi Ahuja (18) of R N Podar School at Santa Cruz scored 95.6% in the commerce stream, and has been admitted to both New York University as well as Pennsylvania State University in the US. “I want to pursue a degree in finance. I will choose PSU because they have a good recruitment programme,” he said. The academic arch of many of his classmates follows a similar trajectory.

Even the Mumbai high-scorers in the science stream Nasreen Jaleel and Sriram Radhakrishnan are more worried about their IIT entrance exam; the results will be announced on May 25. Humanities high scorer Neeti Bhatt who scored 96.4% is aiming for St Stephen’s and Lady Shriram Colleges in Delhi.

Faculty members of R N Podar School, which produced two high-scorers are not surprised that students are shunning Mumbai colleges. “We had conducted workshops for our students at the beginning of the academic year where they were introduced to some of the best universities in India and abroad,” said the school’s vice principal Sunita George.

Mumbai University’s reputation has taken a beating in the past couple of years, and college faculty members are not surprised that the elite group of high scorers is not keen on pursuing a graduate education in the city.

Students shun city colleges, look to IITs, IIMs and universities abroad

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