How the National Education Policy may just make it easier for Indian students to get admission in Ivy league colleges

• The recent changes in the National Education Policy might actually increase the chances of an admission into a top university abroad.
• The newly introduced grading system will help students identify their life skills.
• Top colleges today look beyond the marks, which is a small percentage of your application, and instead focus a lot on the profile of the student.

Over 750,000 Indian students study abroad. Almost every other student aspires to go to an Ivy league college like Harvard, Oxford and the likes, but only few are able to achieve that dream. But the recent changes in the National Education Policy might actually increase the chances of an admission into a top university abroad.

Grading system, for the win

The newly introduced grading system will help students identify their life skills. The new report cards will assess life skills along with giving marks to students. Also, as per the new policy, the 10+2 structure of school curricula is to be replaced with a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to age groups 3-8 years, 8-11, 11-14 and 14-18 years respectively.

While Nitish Jain, President, SP Jain School of Global Management believes this could be a problem while applying to universities abroad as 12 years of high school is the generally accepted international norm, many others disagree.

"Students from over 100 countries apply for admission into top colleges in the US, UK, Australia. Since each country's school education system differs in terms of quality and exam system, admissions into these global institutions are usually on the basis of student scores in broad-based exams like SAT etc. Hence, I do not feel that reducing Indian high school from 12 to 11 years will make much of a difference,” said Dr. Akhil Shahani, Managing Director, Shahani Group.

No differentiation between arts and sciences will build a student’s profile

Akshay Chaturvedi, co-founder of Leverage Edu, an edutech startup that helps students apply to top colleges abroad, said that the NEP has many golden nuggets. “The availability to pick arts and sciences builds the right foundation. Even in the startup world, so many amazing successful founders today don’t necessarily come from an engineering background,” he said.

Other founders agree as well. “Especially in the tech world, where the rules of tech change every five years, it is imperative that we don't remain shortsighted in educating tech aspirants,” said Ayush Jaiswal, co-founder and CEO of Pesto Tech which helps companies hire remote engineers from India. Jaiswal added that even allowing Ivy league colleges to set up their campuses in India is another advantage. "This is certainly poised to help Indian students have better access to global avenues of learning and opportunities," he said.

Meanwhile, Chaturvedi explained that top colleges today look beyond the marks, which is a small percentage of your application, and instead focus a lot on the profile of the student. This focus on the profile will even see universities let go of the 12 years criteria.

He said that once the 5-3-3-4 rule becomes official, government bodies like the UK NARIC which is the United Kingdom national agency for the recognition and comparison of international qualifications and skills will be comparing the new curriculum in terms of pedagogy against the previous system. This advice will then be passed on to the UKVI and the government and suitable decisions will be taken, expectedly in favour of the global student.

“We have seen in the past when Universities have relaxed 5-7% of their academic entry requirement for Indian UG students in UCAS clearing because they recognise the importance of the Indian market and the value Indian students bring in terms of quality academicians and highly skilled workers. Needless to say, we are the 2nd biggest international student community for all top global study destinations. We are highly confident that the new system will not hold any Indian student at a disadvantage in the study abroad scenario,” he said.

Multiple languages – another advantage

The NEP pushes for schools to teach in local languages and use them as a medium of instruction till Class 5. This experts believe will also help students as many universities give a little extra attention to applicants who can speak and write in multiple languages.

“This again adds to your profile and your profile is the most important part of your overall application,” said Chaturvedi.


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