Thanks to the outbreak of the deadly COVID 19 pandemic, the process of digitalization has evolved rapidly across industry verticals around the globe. And, if we talk of the education sector, in a matter of months, higher education institutions have had to reinvent themselves from physical hubs of learning to digital enablers of the students’ academic journey. And while no one knows exactly how the education experience will change in the future, it is quite safe to say that colleges and universities need to be agile, adaptable, and flexible enough to welcome the “next normal” and any other future disruption. A case in point is the effect of digitalization on College Admission processes in pandemic today.
To talk of admission process in pandemic, higher education institutions in general may have faced low enrollments issues even before the pandemic, but the crisis has made it even more tough to get students to complete the complex application processes and actually show up for their first class. To make things easy for students top management colleges like Asian Business School (ABS), Noida have laid out a well-defined user-friendly online admission process. This makes it simple for students to take the next steps by providing self-service options towards more cohesive student journeys. For instance, if a visitor is browsing a page on admissions, the site serves up drop-down link options from the college’s knowledge base to ensure students can quickly find the answers to their questions.
Briefly, the admission process at Asian Business School is contingent on a general assessment of the applicant’s abilities and their potentiality for a fruitful management career. As far as the eligibility criteria is concerned, it declares that all the aspiring applicants for a PGDM course at ABS needs to be graduate from a recognized university. Moreover, candidates who are appearing in their final year are also eligible provided they present the proof of having met the maximum and minimum eligibility criteria within 15 days from the date of publication of the result and prior to the start of first term exam.
The selection process here comprises of 4 Steps. At Step 1, the score of CAT/MAT/XAT/ATMA/CMAT/GMAT are taken as the preliminary score of admission. At Step 2, the applicants who get shortlisted on the basis of the qualifying exam scores will be asked to come for the Institute’s selection process, and the dates will be accordingly intimated to the short-listed students. At Step 3, the computation of Merit List will be done based on the criteria of (i) Score in the Common Admission test (CAT, XAT, CMAT, ATMA, MAT, GMAT) eliciting 35% weightage; (ii) Score for academic performance in X Std., XII Std., Under Graduate Degree/ Post Graduate Degree eliciting 15% weightage; (iii) Group discussion/interview eliciting 45% weightage; (iv) Participation in Sports, Extra-Curricular activities; and (v) Academic diversity and Gender diversity eliciting 5 % weightage. Finally, at Step 4, the prospective candidate, if selected as per merit list, will be given the formal selection letter. Thereafter, the selected candidate will need to pay the registration fee within the given deadline, failing which the offer will be considered as cancelled.
Ever since the eruption of the deadly Coronavirus, Asian Business School has been conducting all admission processes in pandemic remotely through online test followed by Skype interview. The approach here is quite clear and impartial, so that none of the aspirants is deprived of the opportunity. Using fair selection practices remains highly important to ABS and it ensures an unbiased selection procedure for all the aspirants online during this COVID 19 situation.
Thus, it goes without saying that this ease of taking admission from home has ensured safe admission for all prospective students without their coming in anyone’s contact. And, in the final analysis, this has turned out to be a very good option in pandemic!