[alex_smart]

Raw scores! (Btw what are the un-raw scores called? cooked?!)

13 students getting top scores!!

My God, it has been a while since I wrote the exam, has the situation changed that much since then? At my time, there was a 25 marks difference between the top two ranks.

Is there any chance you are talking about JEE Mains and not the JEE Advanced? JEE Mains is supposed to be the easier test that serves as a "prelims" to the more difficult Advanced exam. For Mains itself, it is not all that important to distinguish between the top students.

>I think you're suggesting that joining a coaching centre is a strong signal of seriousness, rather than a material benefit from the actual classes

I am also suggesting that there are other benefits from joining coaching that are probably more important than the much hyped "tricks" for solving problems. For one, joining a coaching class means that you are part of a community of other students with similar goals and aptitude.

Otherwise, I agree with your overall argument (although not in its entirety). Yes, at the lower end of the ladder, small difference in scores can result in big jumps in ranks and yes, coaching would definitely have a significant impact on the prospects of these students.

The point I do not agree with is lack of access to coaching. Even middle class families of Bihar, the poorest state of India, find the resources to send their kid to Kota for a couple of years. So, it is not that inaccessible. Plus there is apparently free material available on youtube now, created by the IITs itself.

I would also argue that people much below this threshold have bigger worries in life. We as a society definitely need to ask ourselves why it is not possible to have a dignified, livable wage for the majority of people in our country when many other countries seem to have solved this problem. Solving such hard socio-economic problems is a ridiculous expectation from a measly entrance exam.

[valarauko]

I was talking about the JEE Mains, because that's the only score the majority of students will be able to use for all the other (non-IIT) colleges. Even if we consider the Advanced, the difference between the top two ranks was only 6 points, and the top 8 were within the 25 point spread that separated the top two in your year (I'm using 2019 for a non pandemic perturbed year). The top 10 were separated by an average of less than 4 points each.

> Even middle class families of Bihar, the poorest state of India, find the resources to send their kid to Kota for a couple of years. So, it is not that inaccessible.

I wonder, though. Quora answers about the cost of coaching in Kota from 2018 yields figures in the range of 2.6 - 3.3 lakhs annually (ie, coaching + accommodation + food, etc). That's a median additional expenditure of 25K per month, for two years. Yes, some families from Bihar are able to muster up the amount, but I suspect there is some survivorship bias here. Even if Kota were to be filled by Bihari students, it doesn't necessarily follow that it is accessible to the average bright motivated Bihari student. My guess it is not.

> I would also argue that people much below this threshold have bigger worries in life.

No argument there.

[alex_smart]

>Yes, some families from Bihar are able to muster up the amount

Not "some". It is literally lakhs of families every year. And if you look at the data of total number of JEE candidates from Bihar, that is actually a very significant percentage.

Even if you believe that coaching is not accessible to the average bright motivated Bihari student, the very fact that so many people from the poorest, most backward part of the country look at this exam as an instrument to better their lives should tell you something.

[valarauko]

> Not "some". It is literally lakhs of families every year. And if you look at the data of total number of JEE candidates from Bihar, that is actually a very significant percentage.

Across all the coaching centres in Kota, you have about ~ 150K students annually, so about 1.5 lakhs in total from all states. Even if the overwhelming majority were Bihari, it doesn't generalize. That's tells us more about the network effect operating in Bihar rather than something about dedicated students in general. That's a lot of kids for a tiny town like Kota, but a drop in the ocean when dealing with the scale of the JEE.

> the very fact that so many people from the poorest, most backward part of the country look at this exam as an instrument to better their lives should tell you something.

Yes, that the exam needs reform. The fact that so many students who 'succeed' at the exams benefited from enrolling in coaching classes suggests that the exam needs to be reformulated to eliminate that variable. It's not the only thing in the education system that needs reform, but it is one among many. If as you suggest serious students benefit from the community of other like minded kids, then self organizing study groups can happen and still save 25K/month.

According to me, the goal of the JEE is to identify ~ 10K kids with the right combination of aptitude & dedication, in a manner that's not blind to their wide ranging social & economic backgrounds. Attending a coaching centre is a signal for their family's desire, but I think we can find much better signals for aptitude & dedication.

[random314]

> the very fact that so many people from the poorest, most backward part of the country

You keep repeating this misdirection everywhere. Students studying in Kota from the poorest and most backward states are not themselves from poor and backward families. India has tremendous wealth inequality as does Bihar. If they were, they wouldn't be able to afford 2 years of coaching and lodging in Kota.