Admission is the most crucial leap taken by a student and the first step by an institute before they begin a journey for next couple of years. The anticipation and excitement exhibited by both institute and student during the admission process is enthralling yet engulfed with complexities and apprehensions. Multiple ways of evaluating candidates have been explored in the past with the likes of group discussions, personal interviews, aptitude tests, psychometric tests, behavioral tests, etc. They have evolved and have formed a part of the admission process. The process is time-consuming, effort-driven, and needs to be updated/modified constantly. This chapter addresses the concerns that candidates and institutes face during the admission process and how technology adoption can increase effectiveness while reducing the time required by institutes to enroll candidates.
TopBackground
Technology has and will play a pivotal role in admission processes for B-institute. The most predominant way by which technology has impacted in admission process is through internet/ Web 2.0. Institutes are using internet as the mode of communicating with the candidate about admission process, timeline and criteria. Institutes are increasingly using social media, networking sites to verify students profile and observe behavioral trends.
Let’s take a step back and compare how technology has revolutionized the complete admission process. Not more than a decade ago, most institutes admission forms were available only by post or hard copy, which the student had to filling in by hand or type it out and then send it back to the college for review. Basis students mentioned credits and institute admission criteria the candidate was communicated about the date of interview over mail, sometimes this would mean that the mail reached the student when the date of interview was past or too close for the student to make travel arrangements. With the advent of web and availability of internet students are now able to communicate to institutes over email and website. While it has reduced the communication lag, but it still was unable to solve the major issue of assessing the candidate for the institute.
With the introduction and reach of high-speed data connectivity, students can appear for interviews over web as per the prescribed time by the institute. This provides the students the flexibility and the time to prepare for the institute admission. While considering the outlook from institutes, online form submission, examination, interview, and evaluation have drastically reduced the effort and time taken by institute in accessing a candidate for the institute. New methods of evaluation are being developed to assess students in the 360Deg way thus providing institute the valuable information about the candidate and facilitating the institute to profile the student.
Below is the process flow a student/ candidate follows while identifying the institute and joining the course. At each stage of this journey technology has played its part.