Many physiotherapy colleges left out of first round of admissions

STRAP: CET approval delay causes high scorers to suffer Mumbai: A major glitch has occurred in the admission process of physiotherapy colleges in Maharashtra, with seats in only 27 of the 72 private colleges in the state being allotted to candidates

STRAP: CET approval delay causes high scorers to suffer

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Mumbai: A major glitch has occurred in the admission process of physiotherapy colleges in Maharashtra, with seats in only 27 of the 72 private colleges in the state being allotted to candidates. Parents who made enquiries were told that the colleges were not included in the first round of admissions, as they had not received approval to participate in the process conducted by the state’s common entrance test (CET) cell.

According to parents, this form of delay affects medical admissions every year despite their parleying with concerned departments on ways to avoid the inconvenience to students. This year too, seats at some of the best colleges in the physiotherapy discipline remained off the table during the first round.

The drawbacks of this are obvious: students who score the highest marks have to make do with only the approved colleges or participate in the second round. If they decide to take whatever they get in the first round, students scoring lower than them are able to get admitted to the better colleges in the second round.

“My daughter scored really well and was looking forward to taking admission to Sancheti College in Pune. We were confident that she would get the college she wanted in the first go,” said the father of one aspirant. Seats in the college, however, were not up for grabs.

When the disappointed family questioned the college authorities, they were told that the renewal of approval for the following semester was not done in time for the first round of admissions. “The officials told us that we should reject the allotted seat and wait for the second round. This defeats the entire purpose of meritorious students getting their preferred colleges in Round 1,” said the father.

Sudha Shenoy, a representative of the parents’ body, revealed that parents spoke to the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences officials every year about this. “It is unfair that the failure of the university to adhere to the timetable or to communicate with the Department of Medical Education and Research affects bright students adversely,” she said. “This year particularly, the number of non-approved colleges is too big to ignore. Why can’t the approval process be preponed so that admissions can be conducted smoothly?”

Hindustan Times made repeated attempts to get a comment from the officials of the CET cell but failed.