The National Testing Agency’s (NTA) normalising the Common University Entrance Exam (CUET) scores came in for criticism from a section of students, who called the process “unfair” and said it may impact their chances of getting a seat in top colleges and universities.
Many students have raised the concern of lower percentiles in their results due to normalisation. “When I calculated my marks on the basis of the answer key, it was 505 out of 700, but the normalised score reflects 421 marks only. I don’t know if this will help me get into the college of my choice,” said a student who had attended the CUET UG 2022.
However, UGC in a statement explained, “The CUET-UG was conducted over a period of six weeks with tests in a given subject held on different days. So the question that arises is how are we going to compare the performance of different students on a common scale since they have written the test in the same subject but on different days. We need to ensure that admissions are based on a score that accurately compares students’ performances.”
UGC Chairman Jagdesh Kumar said, “Normalisation using Equi-percentile method causes neither benefits nor harms students’ marks. Since they are writing in different sessions and the difficulty levels are different, even if they got the same marks in two different sessions, when the difficulty levels are taken into account, the normalised marks will be different.”
“Students need not worry about these differences as the CUET normalisation formula was decided by a panel of experts from the Indian Statistical Institute, the Indian Institute of Technology — Delhi, and Delhi University. Universities can use these marks to prepare the rank lists for admissions,” he added.
The candidates who attended the exam are still not satisfied with the explanations given by the UGC and are expressing their grief and concern on various social media including Twitter.
