FOR A PROFESSIONAL CAREER: Students appearing for the entrance test conducted by COMED-K for admission to professional courses in private colleges in Bangalore on Sunday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BANGALORE: The admission process for undergraduate professional colleges began on Sunday with about 90 per cent of the registered students turning up for the Under Graduate Entrance Test (UGET) conducted by the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) in 105 centres across the State.

Barring 12 cases of malpractice where the students found guilty were debarred, the test was peaceful, according to COMEDK executive secretary S. Kumar. The consortium had introduced a red alert system to keep track of malpractice attempts. "Many of those listed in red alerts stayed away by absenting themselves and the rest have been duly verified," Dr. Kumar said.

Eighty-seven per cent of the 67,013 registered candidates appeared for the physics and chemistry examinations in 73 centres in Bangalore, while the attendance was 94 per cent in centres outside the city.

For the biology paper, the attendance was 83 per cent in the city and 87 per cent outside.

The turnout was the highest for the mathematics paper with 90 per cent of the registered candidates appearing for it in centres in the city and 97 per cent outside.

The scores in the COMEDK test will determine who gets the 888 medical, 776 dental and 9,063 engineering seats under management quota in professional colleges attached to the consortium. The answer keys of the test are available on the COMEDK website, www.comedk.org.

Many students were from outside Karnataka. A parent, Fabuli Purohit, had come down from Delhi with his son. "It would have made things a lot easier if they could have examination centres in the north," he said.

But another parent, Prakash N. R., an engineer from Mumbai, had made arrangements to get his daughter acclimatised to Karnataka even before she got a seat. "If you are aiming for a seat in a college in Karnataka, might as well get to know the place," that was his reason to enrol his daughter in Kannada language classes.

Ramya, a city student, spotted three mistakes in the chemistry question paper, but she was not too sure. Others had another problem - the difference in standard between the SSLC syllabus and CBSE which the test had apparently failed to take notice of. Krithi Venkataraman, a student, said, "It was an OK paper, the difference in complexity between the two boards patterns made it harder."

Fees

Waiting in the rain outside, many parents were worried of the high fees.

But one of them, Rajeshwari, said she was interested only in a merit seat for her daughter and had no money for donation.

"If she does not get a merit seat in Bangalore, then the last resort would be B.Sc.," she added.

However, Sindhu of National Junior College had no such problems. "My parents are ready to pay the donation demanded by the managements of engineering colleges," she said.

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