<p>I read some post (on CNN) about some education policy in another country, that is somewhat similar to our affirmative action policy. I copy and paste that post here in case somebody here may be interested in it. It is an eye opener for me at least. (It appears to me that the degree of affirmative action needed in a country is closely correlated to the degree of inequality and upward mobility in that country, unless the right of those in the bottom of the society have been completely oppressed by those in the top of the society, which might be the cases in many countries in most of human history.)</p>
<p>"For the benefit of non-Indian readers: SC/ST/OBC refers to the controversial reservation system practiced in Indian higher education. Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) have a certain number of college seats reserved for them, whether they are used or not.</p>
<p>This arrangement sometimes forces highly-talented people into second-level colleges and universities while doing very little for the castes involved. The writer was assigned to the general category (GEN), and feels he may have lost his chance at a top-level college because of the reservation system.</p>
<p>Since we're talking about India, one can assume that these reserved places are subject to the same amount of graft and corruption as every other part of the Indian government. Reformers have tried for decades to improve the system, but since the majority of government workers are making good money through graft and corruption, reforms are always voted down."</p>
<p>I just look it up. Sometimes they are called management seats. kind of like “affirmative action for the rich.” One link I found says that, for some private colleges, 40 per cents of all seats are for management seats. Wonder how many per cents are development admits for private colleges in US. I guess this kind of admission policy exists in many countries. That is, “special treatment” for some students for various reasons. Two most noticeable reasons are 1) the political power of the group or class the student belongs to, 2) how wealthy the family of the student is. The only difference is the per cents of the admits and how transparent the policy is in a given country. For the latter, some countries are more HYPOCRITICAL than others, as they do it but do not want to admit they do it.</p>
<p>"The remaining 3,050 seats are available in 23 private medical colleges.</p>
<p>The private colleges are allowed to fill 40 per cent of their total seats on their own, totalling 1,220 seats under the management quota, by duly following transparent procedures and merit secured in 10+2 exams.</p>
<p>However, it is an open secret that the managements “auction” the seats and give admissions to the highest bidder."</p>
<p>Next time a student is not able to get into a college he wants to get in, he could blame 1) why the group he belongs to is so weak politically 2) why is his family not wealthy enough. LOL.</p>
<p>There is a certain lack of understanding in these posts but for most extent the terms are correct.</p>
<p>India at one time had only state run colleges. These state run colleges over time got more and more entangled in quotas with individual states caving into caste based political powers demanding their fair share based on the percentage of people in that caste in that state. So at one time, the affirmation action or reservations was at around 50% in most state schools but some states now go all the way to 75% or more. So OP’s reference is correct that if someone is applying solely through merit and they have no quota for their caste, they are pretty much competing for a small sliver of seats. These government schools have really low tuition (few hundred dollars) and more established and so most students are aiming to get into them. The competition is ridiculous for top engineering and medical schools (both start right after 12th) with some having an admit rate lower than 0.5%.</p>
<p>The private schools or those with management quotas are pretty much money based. These are started by people who intend to make money. What most States do is to have their own regulations for private colleges. So at some point, most of the states have created a scheme where all of the private colleges use the same grades and ranking in the common tests for engineering or medicine to give admission but charge a much higher tuition on an yearly basis. So now the engineering schools are charging $5- 10,000 per year tuition based on the major and popularity of the school itself and medical schools $10-20,000 per year. This fee structure is needed since the private schools are self funded. However, the founders group has an allocation of seats for which they bypass the rank requirement in the entrance exam and ask for a capitation fee or what amounts to a large donation. No one goes from US to India for engineering but I have a lot of friends whose kids went for medicine. They have paid an upfront fee of $125-150,000 but no tuition for the rest of the 6 years of medical school. Living expenses can run around 3-4k and as someone whose kid was admitted to NYU told me, it was a lot cheaper than getting an undergrad from NYU when comparing 250k at NYU vs 160k for a medical degree.</p>
<p>I personally am not familiar with anything in that society at all. But coincident or not, our family happened to have had many doctors with the Indian ethnic in the past (at least 5 doctors as we have moved from one state to another state many times.) Some of them appear to not have any Indian’s typical accent at all even if the medical school he or she attended was in Indian, not in US. It is our experience that a very high percentage of family doctors were graduated from a foreign medical school – the exception is when the doctor himself is very old (i.e., almost the retirement age.)</p>
<p>My wife’s current doctor was graduated from a med school in India. Of course, we do not know which med school in Indian is considered better, or it is like in US, where a majority of 126 med schools are comparable in their quality.</p>
<p>On the engineering front, I do know IIT is considered as the best. This is because I had a coworker from that school before.</p>
<p>“Some of them appear to not have any Indian’s typical accent at all even if the medical school he or she attended was in Indian, not in US”</p>
<p>It is quite possible these are the ones that went to India after being raised in US. The older ones in the 50 and above range originated from India while the younger ones could be from US or India based on their accents and degrees.</p>
<p>“we do not know which med school in Indian is considered better”</p>
<p>Irrespective of which school they went to, if they were able get into residency, get a position etc., they are usually good or know their way around the medical system. Having said that, dad<em>of</em>3 mentions the harvard equivalent of Indian medical school but unfortunately it only has under 50 seats or so. Same applies to several other top schools (JIPMER in pondicherry, CMC medical college in Vellore, Armed forces medical college - not sure what it is called exactly, and a couple of others). There are a lot of old medical schools that are state owned which produce highly competent graduates. In the last 10-20 years, a lot of schools were funded or started by Indian origin physicians who have either gone back or visit often to teach etc. Some of these type of schools have a lot of students from US.</p>