Do colleges really have the moral right to demand star students?

First came the future Einsteins on TV. The nation stared transfixed as boys and girls with sky-high marks in class 12 Board exams smiled awkward smiles into the camera and relatives shoved sweets into their mouth. If one felt a bit uneasy, it was all set aside in the ecstasy of the moment. For, every family had a prodigy in its midst, it seemed: "Have you heard, so-and-so's daughter got 95 per cent? Well, who would have guessed…!"

It took just a month for the ecstasy to turn into agony. In colleges across the country, the admission cut-offs touched mind-boggling heights, with Delhi acting particularly snooty. Even colleges where teachers traditionally box ears before calling attendance, announced 99-100 per cent as the cut-off. New calculations were brought to bear: ten per cent penalty from best-of-four subjects for different boards, 2.5 per cent for wishing to study something new and 2.5 per cent for growing up outside Delhi.

Come July and a blame game has started: parents are livid with the colleges. A Kerala student, denied admission in the DU despite scoring 100 per cent, has just filed a writ petition in Delhi high court against admission guidelines. Colleges, led by St Stephen's, are pointing a finger at grade inflation by the boards. Of course, we all know that grade inflation (or getting higher marks for academic quality that would have fetched less earlier) is a bad thing: it distorts everybody's perception of talent and mediocrity. But the question is: Do colleges have the moral right to demand star students?

No one is asking if colleges have done any "grade inflation" on their teachers. Take Delhi University. Nearly 50 per cent of its teaching posts are lying vacant - going up to 80 per cent in some. So who's teaching? About five thousand people who are temporary, ad-hoc or "guest lecturers", contracted for one semester, teaching for a pittance and without any job security. The DU guidelines state that a college needs to "mention the number of vacant posts" on its website. Have you ever seen any? We can only guess that while staff rooms are becoming thinner, classrooms are getting crowded. In many colleges, students have to stand outside the classroom for a lecture.

St Stephen's principal, Valson Thampu, has written a note on his college website, "To all those who have not made it to the interview. An apology from one who was like you years ago…" The point being, even if you fail to get into Stephen's (like him, once upon a time) life does not end there. Like him, you can try, try and try again, until one day…

Nice effort. But won't cut much ice with the youth: After all, who wants to be the next principal of Stephen's? I actually prefer what students of computer science at Johns Hopkins did in 2013, against a professor who graded them on an absurd curve. If the top-scoring student got an A, the rest of the students would be marked relative to him/ her. The smart students got together and boycotted his tests. Obviously, all scored zero. But since zero became the top score, they all got As.

Think about it.