Admission diaries: What happens the day after the results

I'd like to say that I was completely calm and composed. That I wasn't apprehensive. But that wouldn't be the truth.

I am just another Indian teenager facing one of the biggest milestones of my life: the class 12 CBSE boards. I somehow made it through the academic year having finished my exams about a month back. And now, it was the time for the second phase to commence - the declaration of results.

Truth is, I'd never felt this shaky in my entire life. I had purposely delayed waking up for as long as I could because I knew I would only get more flustered by the hour. When the much awaited time did arrive, my mother worriedly pointed towards the clock (which had already been getting way too much attention today) to alert me of the time, 12:00 noon. I quickly scrambled to open the laptop to find that my brother had already very caringly kept all possible websites open to check the results.

I proceeded to carefully fill out my board roll number and select my subject stream. My finger hovered over the key for a second before it finally slammed onto it. And nothing. The page just refreshed itself. I howled with indignation and called my mother who attempted to try it as well. What an anti-climax.

We realised a little later that we were looking for the result on the wrong web page! A call from my friend and finally, we moved to the correct site. The number was filled out yet again and there was the result.

I wouldn't have known this myself, since I had squeezed my eyes shut.

It was the excited screams of my mother and brother that said it all.

"How many of them are in 90s?" I asked neither of them in particular.

"ALL OF THEM! ALL OF THEM!" squealed my mother. I opened my eyes to see the result displayed in a neat tabular box.

Failing in the attempt to not sound dramatic, I'd like to say that those numbers on the screen were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

I am not a very religious person, but a string of "thank you God" escaped my lips. The next phase is often equally nerve-racking - the admission process. Many of my friends have chosen to get into professional courses of their choice by taking entrance exams. I, however, took an alternate decision of relying on the unpredictable board result to get me through.

Thankfully, it worked out much better than I had expected. The admission procedure for colleges in Delhi University begins with registration, a process that can now be carried out online, while being comfortably settled in our air-conditioned homes. This is a much appreciated leap from having to "sweat it out while waiting in never ending lines", as my mother puts it.

May 28 was slated to be the date for the beginning of online registration in Delhi University colleges. I was required to fill out an online form to register myself for all colleges. Well, except for St Stephen's of course. Their admission process began not just with registration, but involved a more elaborate selection procedure.

After an unsuccessful attempt at looking for the link at midnight, I was woken up five hours later by my father who had already begun registering me and needed to know my board roll number. We began to fill out the requisite details. Oddly enough, the site didn't have the option of "best of four" subjects, which is the basis for calculating cut-off percentages in DU.

The form for St Stephen's, however, provided students with the option of identifying their four best subject scores. It also asked for additional details and information, such as the reason for opting for a certain subject, their hobbies, interests, and professional goals. In fact, St Stephen's not only determines the admission of students based on their marks, but also gives importance to an aptitude test and an interview conducted by the college. A much better way if you ask me.

It really brings out the non-academic credentials of students, which should be considered an important criterion in more colleges of DU. On the contrary, a critique of the system suggests that it leads to subjectivity in the admission process. The jury is still out on this one!

The process of filling out the form for St Stephen's ended with my father scanning a few of my certificates and checking the entered details before submitting the application. Now all that was left for me was to wait for a month before the cut-offs were released and the admissions started.

Also read: CBSE Class 12 results: Scoring 99%-100% shows Indian education system is failing