Presidency University to Conduct Admission Tests over a Week

From the 2016-17 academic session onwards the Presidency University would be conducting its admission tests to various undergraduate and postgraduate courses over a week instead of holding them on a single day. The decision was taken because numerous candidates especially those who had appeared for test to multiple subjects complained of difficulties while appearing for the exams on one day.

The plan has been sent by the university to the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board that has been conducting its entrance exams from last year. The board’s approval of the same that is a mere formality would be issued in a couple of days.

One proposal among others is to have an admission test for the Hindi department. Also some departments that want to hold both multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and written test want to have the duration of the exams to be increased to three hours. According to registrar Debajyoti Konar,” All science subjects except economics will hold MCQ tests. Candidates taking entrance examinations in economics will need to appear in both MCQ and long-format answer tests,"

The Presidency University will be holding its admission tests between June 6 and June 12. The registration for online admission test would be open for candidates between April 5 and May 5.

A university source said,” "Students who had opted to appear in multiple subjects admission tests last year had faced severe crisis. There was very little time. Though we ensured that the likely subject combinations were not given the same time slot, the duration between one exam and the other was very little. As a result, the candidates went through a lot of stress."

A source added, "Some subjects want to introduce both MCQ and written exams instead of just one. For example, the economics department wants to extend the duration of the tests because they hold exams in both MCQ and long-format answers. The subjects wanting to hold just any one format will keep the duration to two hours. Keeping these proposals in mind, it will not be possible for the same candidate to appear in multiple subject exams on the same day. Hence, the university is mulling to stagger the admission tests. These proposals have been put forward to the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board. Everything will be decided thereafter."

At the same time the test for the 15 post-graduation courses would also be held.

The university authorities were forced to outsource the admission test to WBJEE board from 2015 onwards because of the unprecedented number of students appearing for the tests in 2014. Now the question paper would be set by the individual departments and also corrected by them. The results would be published by the university. The rest would be the responsibility of the JEE board.