Candidates appearing for the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) will now have the option of selecting their test scores before applying to universities. Candidates can choose from recent score and scores in the past five years and send it to top business and management schools across the world.

The score select option has begun from July 2, a statement released on Monday by Educational Testing Service (ETS) that conducts the examination said.

Candidates can decide which test scores to send to the institutions they choose, so they can send the scores they feel reflect their personal best. On the test day, when viewing their scores at the centre, they can select the 'Score Select Most Recent' option to send their scores. And Score Select All option is to send all their scores of the last five years. Both the services will be free to candidates.

For example, if a candidate wants to go to either Harvard or Yale University and he/she only wants to send Harvard the latest test scores. Then the candidate can click 'Most Recent' option and Harvard will only see the candidate's most recent scores. For Yale, if the candidate wants to send them all three scores, then he/she can select the 'all' option and Yale University will receive all of his scores.

Individuals taking the paper-based GRE revised General Test or a Subject Test will select their options prior to test day. The score select option focuses on helping test takers succeed on the road to an advanced degree because they can approach test day with more confidence, the statement further added.

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The highly-anticipated first cutoff list of Rajasthan University's constituent colleges - Maharani's, Maharaja's, Commerce and Rajasthan was finally out on Tuesday. Much on the expected lines, the cutoff in different subjects in these colleges has seen a rise between 2% and 4%. Besides, 12% increase in number of applicants compared to previous year has made the competition tougher.

The highest cutoff is for BCom in Maharani's College. It has touched an all-time high with 93.6% in the general category. "This is the highest cutoff for BCom course in any college in the state. It is presumably higher than many colleges of Delhi University," said Anjali Krishamurti, principal of Maharani's College.

In a similar manner, BSc pass course touched 90% followed by BA pass course that has cutoff at 80%, both in general category. Maharani's College declared cutoff for 80% seats on Tuesday and the rest 20% seats will be declared in two lists later in the week. The college which has 2,300 seats has received over 12,000 admission forms. It has also received applications from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

Commerce College, against the expected lines, saw a fall of 2% in the first cutoff list. It touched 86.2% against last year's 88.31% in general category. The fall can be attributed to the average result of Board of Secondary Education Rajasthan. For SC candidates this year the cutoff list is 70% and for STs it is 68%.

Commerce College has 960 seats against 6,000 forms received. The college has also received applications from Delhi due to the high cutoff in Delhi colleges. "The high cutoff has been the trend for the past two years. The decline this year indicates that many students have moved to private colleges and other universities," said RK Jat, former principal of Commerce College.

Students rush to the college notice board as soon as the cut off marks list displayed hoping to see their name in the list.

Around 25 students have already deposited their fees. CM Sharma, principal of Commerce College said, "There will be two more cutoff lists which will be displayed on June 29 and 30. This year the number of admissions seems to be less as compared to last year."

When the second and third lists are announced the cutoff may decrease between 3% and 5%. "In many cases, students applied for both pass course and honours. It is most likely that few of them will not turn up for admission," said Sharma.

The final list has been prepared by special software. SMSes have already been sent through the software to students whose names are included in the final list. The SMS reads - 'Provisionally admitted in University Commerce College BCom Part I, deposit your fee till July 29 positively'. "This facility will help students to complete all their formalities," said Commerce College principal.

Maharaja's College too brought out the list for pass course with cutoff for general category in biology at 72.83%, almost the same as previous year. The cutoff for maths is 84.46% for general category. "Because of the rising number of engineering colleges the students have become less interested in pursuing BSc," said the college's principal. Maharaja's College has 320 seats each for BSc in Biology and Maths. It has received close to 5,000 forms against 1,200 seats in all programmes.

Rajasthan College also registered a slight increase in the cutoff list for its BA pass course, which touched 78.20% in general category. The college will announce honours cutoff list soon.

Traditional courses in demand again

The cutoff for graduation in humanities in Government College is 63.8% while for maths it is more than 72%. Traditional courses here are once again in demand after a gap of five years. Last year the cutoff for humanities was less than 55%. The interest in graduation courses increased among students just after the sixth pay commission.

"There are chances that the cutoff will decrease in the second list and I am waiting for that. I have filled forms in three colleges and will join as soon as I get a seat," said Bhanwar Singh, a student.

College sources said that on the first day, about 30% of the students submitted their fees. "Last year we had to wait long for students and two years ago the condition was worse. That year many seats in humanities and science remained vacant," said a college source.

The trend seems to be changing as many students now want government jobs rather than professional courses like MBA, etc.

According to sources in Government College, Ajmer last year there were hardly 10 forms against 67 seats in honours courses. However this year the number of forms has increased five times. "A good number of forms are being sold and girls are showing interest in this college," said Chitra Arora, principal of Government Girls' College.

If you have ever received an e-mail offering a variety of numbers or websites to contact for free wall papers of Bollywood stars, you're no stranger to the world of digital marketing. Digital marketing is the use of the internet for advertisement and publicity. With increasing human interest in online pursuits, digital marketers indeed have an enviable job!

Course Watch Most institutions which provide these courses require a bachelor's degree from any stream. As digital marketing pertains to knowledge in science, statistics, artistic visualisation and e-commerce, student of any field can take up digital marketing as a career. However, those with degrees in technology and/ or marketing do have an upper-hand. Following this, an aspirant can opt for a number of courses such as Diploma in Digital Marketing, Executive Programme in Digital Marketing (EPDM), MSc in Digital Marketing (following a diploma or certificate) and numerous IAMAI ( Internet and Mobile Association of India)-approved programmes. Many management institutes (such as IIMs) offer programmes by NIIT. Student must make sure that the covers search engine marketing, search engine optimisation and e-mail marketing.

Skill Speak Krishna Mohan, AVP of business development and regional head, Magnon Solutions, advises, "The candidate must be a complete internet-freak! He should have more than a basic knowledge about the internet and should have a strong presence in it. They should be creative and understand how to create strategies which are campaign-specific."

Work Wise What do the digital marketers do before companies put up ads on web pages? "With a clear campaign objective and set deliverables/ expectation from the activity, the communication is worked out and the required landing pages are created. Banner creatives with communication are used on the sites and tracking mechanisms are used to keep a track of the performance," answers Satya Prabhakar, CEO and founder of Sulekha.com

Detailing the job profile of a digital marketer, Subrata Roy, founder of Vervecom Media, adds, "A digital marketer understands the needs of a client. It is his job to hand over brand promise to the client."

A professional working in the SEM sector of digital marketing deals with earning revenue from Pay per Click advertisements. R Krishna Kumar, who trains clients in Google's AdSense and runs way2onlinejobs, provides his insights, "Through the AdSense Affiliate Programme, you are actually helping Google advertise on your site and they pay you a percentage of what they earn. Through AdSense, you have full control of your advertisement expenditure and even receive a report on the success of your ad, how many customers it attracts and so on."

Lately, social media optimisation has also been growing. Here, the marketer is responsible for promotion through social networking sites. Piyush Khanna, executive of customer care at Bestylish, an online shoe store, comments, "Through our ads on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, we are able to garner maximum attention of people across the nation and not limit it to one region."

Moolah Matters A fresher can expect between Rs 15000-30000 rupees per month. Sky is the limit for experienced professionals.

Potential Growth Brand promotion is peaking with internet-based public relations. The rise of online education, shopping and other activities translates into more growth for digital marketing. It scores well because companies can estimate the number of people who receive their advertisement more accurately. Raghu Chaitanya Koorella, head of Marketing at MedPlusBeauty, a site catering to beauty and personal care, says, "Considering we have an e-commerce website, online advertising is a must for us. Customers don't go to a website immediately after seeing a billboard or hearing an ad on radio. When we advertise online, our customer is just a click away from us as opposed to traditional marketing means." Rajesh Iyer, chief marketing officer at Pepperfry, a site dedicated to changing the relation between people and lifestyle, shares a similar view, "If there is a great offer, consumers can instantly click on the advertisement, land on your website and complete the transaction. It is a lot more efficient than traditional advertising."

School look-out IIMs Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing, UK

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Goa University has introduced a unique five-year integrated MBA programme in hospitality, travel and tourism. Students will also be able to exit the programme after three years, if they desire, with a BBA degree.

"This course will stop the outflow of students from Goa to other states for similar programmes, which are sought after by a large number of students from Goa. We are also exploring the possibility of providing the option to students of undergoing the course on a part-time basis, which will enable working people to benefit from the programme," a Goa University official said.

The course will follow a credit based system in force at the Harvard University. Admission to the course will be done through a national level entrance exam and hostel facility will be made available to outstation candidates.

Organisational behaviour, tourism concepts, economics of tourism, hotel engineering, hotel laws, nutrition science, marketing management, food production, food and beverage practicals, human resource management, front office services will be some of the topics students will learn in detail during the course.

Students can join the course after Class XII. The course has an intake of 30 seats. The programme also includes a summer internship in the hotel industry during the vacation breaks of each academic year.

The programme has an impressive list of faculty including that from an Indian Institute of Management, an official of the Rome embassy, Asian School of Management in Manila and University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

A source from Goa University said that the university is also planning to offer degree, diploma and certificate programmes in hotel management and tourism after standard XII so that Goan students will have an advantage over students of other states when they appear for the entrance exam to get into the MBA programme in the subject at GU.

Source: TOI

The row between the government and IITs over the entrance test was resolved today at a crucial meeting with a compromise agreement being reached over holding the common exams from next year. M. N. Sharma , Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT, Madras, chaired the meeting in the absence of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal.

Under the new format, an advance test will be conducted and the elite educational institutes would admit students having top 20 per cents from various boards.

“We have come out with a formula where screening criteria will be set wherein top 20 percentile students from every board will qualify to get entrance in IIT,” said Deependra Hooda, a member of the IIT Council, after the meeting.

This will be implemented from 2013, he said.

The compromise was reached at a meeting of the IIT Council, the highest decision-making body having representatives from the government and directors of all the 16 of these institutes.

According to the agreement, admission to the IITs from 2013 would be based only on rank achieved in the advance test subject to the condition that selected candidates are in the top 20 percentile of their Boards.

The government had earlier proposed a common entrance which was rejected by IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur and some others were also likely to follow suit.

The compromise formula is in line with the decision of the IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB), comprising Directors of IITs, which met here on last Saturday.

The JAB has sought a suitable time gap between the main and the advanced tests so that the results of mains are available before the advanced and only the top 1,50,000 candidates (including all categories) in the mains appear in the advance test.

IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur had rejected the proposed format on the ground that the test was “academically unsound and procedurally untenable”.

Source: TOI

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