Mumbaiapplication.com | Online College applications for students after SSC | Online Applications for juniour colleges

For the first time this year, students will be able to file their junior college applications on June 27 – a day after the results are declared. This will be possible on account of www.mumbaiapplication.com an online application site, which has been created under the supervision of Deputy Director of Education (Mumbai region) Sheila Tiwari. 5,00,000 students and 500-plus colleges affiliated with the University of Mumbai will benefit from the process. Dhvani Solani talks to students, authorities and IT professionals to gauge the reactions to and the feasibility of the new idea. MAKING IT HAPPEN

Last year, when Sheila Tiwari, deputy director for school education, Mumbai, was mulling over the idea of having junior college admissions online, little did she know that the idea would become a reality in less than a year. “With 50,000 hits on the first day and over 2,000 people registered till now, I am very optimistic that this will take off well,” says Tiwari. “It’s a miracle that we had the whole project ready in a month. Though we were toying with the idea since last year, we weren’t expecting a nod from the government so quickly, and it feels good that in spite of that, we were able to launch it in time.” Tiwari says that almost 90 per cent city’s school and college faculty have been trained to help students apply for admissions online.

Jitendra Shah, former VJTI professor, who has been mentored website creation, is pleased to see 99 per cent of the responses coming in from students and parents. However, there have been a few hurdles to the process. “There are certain colleges who desire their own admission process and resist the centralisation. So it’s difficult to get them within the site’s purview,” he says. “Also, initially we thought that co-ordinating payment in a city like Mumbai would be difficult.” However, this has been solved through Zipcash, a mobile payment system.

“If this integration of technology succeeds, it will have positive repercussions, and will make the system totally feasible for the future years.” A MATTER OF AUTHORITY Students and parents are not the only ones thanking technology. Though duplication of applications might increase the workload on college authorities, most of them are optimistic that the system will work wonders in reducing paperwork and physical payments. “The idea is very progressive, though it might not be 100 per cent foolproof this year,” says Gvalani, vice principal, KC College. “But the education department is aware of the possible glitches and will work towards making it flawless.” Authorities shrug off student fears of whether colleges will consider their online admissions, or give preference to physical ones. But authorities shrug that off too. Rekha Bahadur, vice principal of HR College, says, “We do expect students to apply both online and physically But both the lists . will be merged to decide the final cut-offs.” HR College has also set up a special committee to tend to anxious queries. Similarly, KC College has assigned a body of teachers to ensure that the system flows smoothly .

YOUNG MINDS AT WORK
Last year, an exasperated Varun Seth (24) ran from pillar-to-post to collect and submit junior college admission forms for his brother, a Class X student. Disillusioned by the experience he turned to Urvish Kukreja and Sugato Banerjee — MBA Tech students on a solution to the confusion. An areawise node system for students to drop applications was one suggestion. Realising that this could be susceptible to too many loopholes, the students came up with a prototype of the current website. “When we conducted our research, we found out that 75per cent of students wanted to online admissions,” says Kukreja. “We were in talks with the Deputy Director of Education, Sheila Tiwari, who had been thinking of the idea for a while.” Binyas IT, a Pune-based company gave their idea form. It re-designed the software and maintained the site keeping in mind the users and traffic it could generate. Binyas has kept the site as simple as possible so that it can be accessed by varying Internet speeds. “We are in talks with the Board to put up the results as soon as they come out,” says Swapnil Hajare (26).

EXPERT SPEAK The application has many good features. The look of the website could have been more vibrant – right now, it’s too bland and devoid of interesting colour schemes or fonts. PRASHANT DEORAH, CEO, Puretech Internet, an integrated web-based solutions company provides his suggestions on the design and working of the website.

The application has many good features. For instance, the ability to create your profile offline on Excel and upload it to the site; the fact that the application will automatically populate marks of students from the Mumbai Board; the fact that ir enables outstation students to apply for admissions to city colleges; the ability to apply to any number of colleges; the mobile payment system and the video walkthrough to help students understand the system.

There are very minor quibbles. The walkthroughs could have been done in flash, which would have been lighter and easier for students. Instead, they have to downloading large video files. The search functionality could have been better. I tried searching for Bhavan's College, the search engine terminated my query at Bhavan, because many applications have a problem dealing with special characters like apostrophe.

The look of the website could have been more vibrant – right now, it’s too bland and devoid of interesting colour schemes or fonts. They could have had a mascot or a character that could serve as a walkthrough.

COLLEGE It’s a single link to all college sites. You can still apply to any of the colleges using traditional paper forms.
The form for the college you chose will appear on screen. It will be largely (if not fully) filled with information from your database. The completed form will be seen by you for confirmation.

Once you pay, your application in electronic form will be sent to the respective college with a copy of the same with Deputy Director of Education. You will also get a receipt online and even

Source:Hindustan Times