Parents feel ‘cut-off’ warmth in front of results
Cut-off is the most used word virtually in every home during admission season and more particularly in families awaiting Plus Two results with bated breath.
The anxiety of what will be the cut-off mark for admission to top engineering and medical colleges through counselling is keeping the parents cut-off from their routine. This suspense becomes even more difficult to bear as the most expected State Board Plus-Two results will be out on May 22 and the results of other streams too will follow.
With the Anna University Chennai issuing forms for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions from May 11, the common talk is now only about colleges, admissions, branches and management quota as already the seats in many engineering colleges are being ‘blocked’ even before the results are declared.
Are the parents overdoing it? Is there an unnecessary hype being created about engineering admission when every year many seats go vacant and no-takers for several engineering colleges?
The reply from senior consultant psychiatrist I. Selvamani Thinakaran of K.Pudur for these questions is yes. She has counselling tips for all types of parents.
“First of all, parents should not feel tensed or otherwise it puts pressure on their children. In many cases, problems arise only because of anticipation of failure and not exact failure. Parents should bear in mind that marks alone are not the criteria for life settlement or career or success. No doubt marks are important for joining a top college but let us not put our children to pressure due to our anxiety,” she says.
What to do?
There are different types of parents and different situations, particularly in the middle/ upper middle class families where the anticipation level is high.
The hot summer is hotter in homes where the parents expect very high marks, aim reputed colleges and await Anna university results 2012 of various entrance tests such as AIEEE and IIT. On the other side, there are parents whose son or daughter may score less marks and are waiting for engineering admission in a close by but good college.
L. Ramani, a LIC employee, was candid about her anxiety and expectations from her good performing son. “Of course, there will be anxiety and pressure because I belong to FC category and cannot afford to pour lakhs of rupees for engineering seat. We depend on merit and my son too is a high-scoring student,” she says.
Discussions about college admission and cut-off marks take place in offices too. “In our office, fathers and mothers of plus two students talk a lot on engineering counselling, what to choose and where to go. When we can’t go for payment seat, we have to depend on friends and media to know more about colleges,” Ms. Ramani says.
The same was the case with another mother P. Vijayalakshmi who is now doing a sort of homework with the help of her doctor husband to get her daughter admitted either in engineering or medical college depending on the marks she scores in the bio-maths group.
This anxious mother is familiar with what was the cut-off mark last year and based on that she has a few colleges in mind now.
“Our tension will go on till the admission counselling in July. My daughter’s cut-off will be above 190. We are tensed up at home and having sleepless nights. I have visited a few colleges/deemed universities already,” Ms. Vijayalakshmi says.
She, however, suppresses her tension before her daughter.
“I suppress my anxiety. Getting seat in a good college for my daughter is important for me since there will be societal pressure, comparison and so on. I am confused what to do…whether to block seat or not in a private college under management quota,” the mother says.
There is another father V. Balasubramanian of Mahatma Gandhi Nagar in the city who is already in a frame of mind that his daughter who studied in C.E.O.A. School will get a rank in Plus Two exams.
This may put pressure on his daughter ahead of the results.
“Her first choice is medicine and I have confidence that definitely she will get a State rank. At home we did not disconnect the cable connection like some parents are doing. There was no pressure from us in my daughter’s studies,” he says.
As the countdown starts for Plus Two results and the rates in several engineering colleges has gone up for management quota seats, it is time for parents to get counselled first for clarity before the general counselling of Anna University begins at Chennai on July 9.
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