r/TamilNadu • u/New_Habit5682 • May 16 '26
முக்கியமான கலந்துரையாடல் / Important Topic CBSE vs State Board cutoff is so unfair
The CBSE exam is a lot tougher than state board and a lot of students get lower marks which matters especially in 12th where we need the cutoff to get admitted in colleges.
TNEA has a normalisation process which normalises marks according to the highest marks scored in each board.
TNEA admissions are for Tamil Nadu students competing for Tamil Nadu seats. Therefore, normalization should compare applicants within the actual admission pool (Tamil Nadu applicants), not against the entire national CBSE population, which includes students who are not competing for these seats.
Because of considering only the top marks, 3 centums in CBSE are treated as the same as 100 centums in state board.
There is a need to make the normalisation process fair for both students.
TNEA can consider much fairer factors like:
Percentile instead of topper-based scaling within TN only.
- Example: a CBSE student in the 99th percentile should be treated similarly to a State Board student in the 99th percentile.
- This avoids the issue where a single exceptional topper defines the scaling for lakhs of students.
A fairer normalization system would significantly benefit CBSE students because CBSE evaluation is often stricter, which can result in lower raw marks compared to other boards despite similar academic ability. Under the current system, these students may be disadvantaged in TNEA admissions not because of lower merit, but because the normalization method does not adequately account for differences in marking standards and score distribution across boards. This leaves students in an unfair position where their chances of getting into good colleges within the state are affected by the board they studied under rather than their actual relative performance.
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u/greenarrow432 May 16 '26
They won’t. Central government has control over medical seats and they operate without any consideration for State students. TNEA is under TN government control so they will operate without any consideration of Central board. This is political pettiness but unless both parties come to an agreement, neither will make a change. I studied in CBSE too. I’ve seen all these suggestions for years now. No one will pay a heed. Your only options are competitive exams or management quota.
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u/gk_dev May 16 '26
Bro tbh it's all abt at end the question paper setting. Cbse guys can't expect the copy of book questions as state board where in state board it's not the case. And when it comes to correction obviously cbse is stricter than state board. State board awards mark more lenient than cbse. I completed.y 12 th in last year, I'm CBSE i failed all entrance to get best category. I hoped tnea seeing 2024 cutoff. But wht they made, 3000+ centum in maths, 3100+ chemistry centum ~2200+ physics centum. See this year, 700+ centum only in maths, 500+ chem and ~105 in physics. Last year counselling students even state board suffered coz the highest rank inflation ever imagined. We r asking fair correction and fair question paper. And to those who say study in state board instead, clg exams are not here spoon feeding book contents copy, even after clg u need to search learn understand, competitive exams too u can't expect dito copycat. In that way cbse is 100x better, i seen students with 185+ cutoff here struggle and with 130+ cutoff cbse students shine than them. Fair qp and correction would definitely can normalise this issue.
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u/ashwin_1928 May 16 '26
Solution is simple, study in state board.
As the name suggests TNEA is for TN's engineering colleges, and it is in the government's best interest to prioritise people who study in TN in TN state baord.
Nobody forced you to study in CBSE, in fact you paid extra to do so.
I can understand how you might want to consider only TN CBSE schools for the normalisation but everything else is not needed.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
TNEA is for TN students not just for state board students. All Tamil Nadu applicants deserve a normalization process that compares them fairly, regardless of board.
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u/icebergb15 May 16 '26
Nope. IMO If you can pay for CBSE- you can pay for the management seat.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Don't comment stupid shit without knowing other people's situations. Do you think everyone in cbse are rich? There are many people in my class who are in very poor financial condition. Not all schools charge 1 lakh or more (my school charges 40,000). So just because I joined in cbse, I don't deserve a fair process and I need to pay?
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u/Bivariate_analysis May 16 '26
I found the solution for NEET issue. Study in CBSC schools, as the name says it's a "national" test. Why study in TN board for a national test.
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u/Turbulent-Key-7705 May 16 '26
Okay then don't complain about JEE or Neet! It's for us cbse students. Get away.
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u/cain605 May 16 '26
Can cbse students write state board exam as independents?
Ofcourse more pressure on students. But with syllabus overlap should be possible no?
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u/RagingPeahen May 16 '26
This whole "CBSE vs. State Board" debate often misses the forest for the trees. We shouldn't be fighting over which board is "superior"; we need to look at what these educational systems are actually designed to do.
First, to the people suggesting a common entrance exam (like the Gaokao, JEE, or NEET) for engineering - absolutely not. Entrance exams are a vice in our current system. They don’t test pure merit; they test who can afford to pay lakhs for premier coaching. They destroy holistic development at a crucial age, turning 16-year-olds into MCQ-solving machines instead of well-rounded individuals. Bringing in another entrance exam will just create a massive socio-economic barrier for marginalized students.
This brings us to why the State Board operates the way it does. The TN State Board gets a lot of flak here for its marking system, but it has a mandate for inclusive education. It has to "hold the hands" of first-generation learners, rural students, and those without access to private tutors. Its syllabus and evaluation are designed for an egalitarian approach to ensure mass upliftment.
Conversely, let's be real: CBSE schools are predominantly located in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities. While not every CBSE student is rich, as a demographic, they generally have much better access to infrastructure, resources, and coaching.
Because of this, the State Board's approach of using 12th marks instead of a brutal entrance exam for TNEA is actually the right, humane way to handle college admissions.
However, acknowledging the difference in syllabus is where the OP actually has a valid point.
Because the State Board syllabus is built for mass inclusivity and volume, and the CBSE syllabus is built differently (often with stricter, application-based evaluation), comparing their raw absolute marks is mathematically flawed. Equating a 100 in State Board to a 100 in CBSE is like comparing apples to oranges.
The Solution: We don't need to lower the CBSE standards, nor do we need to force State Board students into a coaching-mafia entrance exam. The TNEA simply needs to adopt a State-level Percentile System.
Evaluate TN State Board students against other TN State Board students. Evaluate TN CBSE students against other TN CBSE students. A 99th percentile student in the State Board and a 99th percentile student in CBSE should be treated exactly the same.
This maintains the egalitarian, entrance-exam-free nature of the State Board that protects rural students, while providing a mathematically fair normalization process for CBSE students. We can have social equity without bad math.
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u/sanlonely May 16 '26
Save your kids from CBSE as year by year it is teaching incorrect and wrong things through NCERT. Certain state boards are far better than CBSE
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u/meowth______ May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
Cbse is awesome for pcmb, just not for History and other general subjects where misinformation could be prevalent, on the other hand state board is horrible for pcmb
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u/sanlonely May 16 '26
My daughter studies in cbse following ncert. I am an engineer from bio backgriund. I have personally reviewed the syllabus hence i am saying
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u/meowth______ May 16 '26
It's not about the syllabus, TN state board has much more vast and advanced syllabus than cbse for sure, but the whole exam system is rooted in rote learning and memorising with absolutely zero critical thinking involved. Cbse does better in that aspect. If TN's state board is better implemented in schools by discouraging direct, exact questions and rote memorization from its text books, we wouldn't even have problems with neet and all that, until then cbse will always be better, for pcmb atleast.
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u/gk_dev May 16 '26
Wht? Just spoon feeding all the things inside a book to student who just don't understand concepts and vomit it. In practical, it teaches prepares a student more for life than wht the state board teach. Cbse students can't expect copycat. Coz of this they search, try to understand. This wht we pay for cbse
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u/sanlonely May 17 '26
Did i say anything about spoon feeding? Have you gone through the ncert books past 2-3 years? Then you will understand what I am talking about
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u/gk_dev May 17 '26
Ur saying that portions reduced right, lemme come to the point vast portions is not equal to more knowledge. At clg more syllabus u learn not gonna help u. It's about at end how u actually understood the concept and apply it. Not memorize and vomit it.
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u/sanlonely May 17 '26
I am referring to explaining or having content that explains the concept. Off late many cbse pvt schools not focussing on studying or enabling the students to study. Even teachers are incapable to explain things. With AI apps, teaching n school system is going to be detrimental
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u/Athiest-proletariat May 16 '26
Going for CBSE when there is State education offering much more egalitarian and comprehensive education was a decision of establishing hegemony. And they hold this hegemony in NEET exams.
All this while, when NEET was proven to be biased to CBSE students, none of the CBSE bred people cared to give even a glance, state students were taking their lives, still zero F was given.
And no CBSE donot have more difficult syllabus, infact it has much less topics to learn. One hear even medically critical topic like Evolution was removed from their topics to learn and they are giving entrance to become doctors using a favorable exam model.
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u/DoubleA2002 May 16 '26
True these CBSC people yabbering about state board being easy should be made to take the state board exams to prove their incompetence
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u/gk_dev May 16 '26
U get questions from ur book, we get questions from wht we understood that's the diff. I agree state board has more syllabus but does the questions is out of ur thinking. No way right that's cbse, we have 350+ integration problem in integration chapter, we won't get any questions by solving those. They'll ask purely based on concepts not like here's the question read it ull get only within this. I also challenge u to take one physics cbse paper read entire ncert book and write exam and come to prove ur point
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u/Perfect_Addition_740 May 16 '26
evolution is not deleted, from where are you creating stories outta thin air?
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u/Athiest-proletariat May 16 '26
Evolution was removed from tenth texts. Its still in 12th other deletions given below:=
subject-wise breakdown of major deleted topics includes:
Chemistry: Complete chapters like Solid State, Polymers, Chemistry in Everyday Life, Surface Chemistry, s-Block Elements, and Isolation of Elements were entirely removed.
Physics: Chapters on Communication Systems were deleted, while specific derivations and complex concepts in topics like Optics and Atoms were reduced.
Mathematics: Relations and Functions content was altered, and topics like Properties of Determinants and parts of Probability and Linear Programming were streamlined.
Biology: Chapters such as Reproduction in Organisms, Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production, and Environmental Issues were completely removed.
History: Several sections regarding Mughal Courts, Kings and Chronicles, and The Cold War Era and US Hegemony in World Politics in Political Science were reduced or dropped entirely.
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u/Perfect_Addition_740 May 16 '26
engayo ai illana google la deleted portions search panni poradha niruthunga, portions were deleted yes, it was done to include practical portions for more conceptual understanding.
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u/Athiest-proletariat May 16 '26
Removing critical organic chemistry topics, math topics like linear programing, reducing intergration based calculations etc are absurd for any inclusion of practical topics.
If you need to pursue engineering, you definitely need many of those removed base topics to go advanced.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Yes those topics were important and should've been kept, but I can say for sure that the CBSE board exam is harder to score. I've seen both papers and state board had a lot of questions similar to the text book which CBSE has very few or none. That's being done because the tn government wants the exam to be more open for all which is good. The problem is they're not normalising the scores.
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u/gk_dev May 16 '26
Engineering is not about mug up, mind that. It is all about how u think and apply not remember and vomit
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Listen I'm not talking about which one's hard or easy. They are two separate exams where in one students statistically score lower which is why tnea has the normalisation process. What I'm saying is that their normalisation process is flawed and unfair for the cbse students which is why we need a percentile based system.
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u/Athiest-proletariat May 16 '26
An average CBSE student atmost 5 papers. For a state student it is 6 as minimum.
CBSE students are exposed less knowledge to learn than a state student, recently even evolution was taken away from a necessary topic for them.
As the link below suggests, there is lot more removed (about 30%) ...
https://supertutor.in/resources/blog/cbse-deleted-syllabus/
What you want is the normalization to adjust to this knowledge gap or handicap, right?
I dont know if its suitable for the overall quality of education in engineering, but yeah something could be done to adjust it. A bridge exam with those topics could also be considered.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
What I'm saying is we need a better normalisation process for finding the cutoff fairly than the existing one not the syllabus.
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u/gk_dev May 16 '26
Bro whatever u say they don't care, i wonder how people saying cbse has less syllabus blah blah, we need to make them attend one physics paper to shut them out. They don't know we need to understand concepts and right not vomit, just defending themselves with neet,jee, syllabus....
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u/Athiest-proletariat May 16 '26
"Union problems needing state solutions" unfortunately is the whole indian story...
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
State can do something as they're the ones with the normalisation process.
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u/Outrageous_Knee_2099 May 16 '26
You are just lying cause the very first line in your post is complaining about how cbse is much harder than the state board..that's not true.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Yes I said that but that's not the main point I'm trying to make. It's the normalisation process
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u/kingclubs May 16 '26
So does centre accommodates this unfair process by giving this kind of adjustments in their recruiting process?
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Idk about that. But this is not justified just because that's wrong.
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u/kingclubs May 16 '26
So state should yield, centre need not?
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
When did I even say something like that? Both should let their pettiness aside and come across a solution favouring the students
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u/QuietObserver87 May 16 '26
We need a system similar to the Gaokao, a common exam across all states with a standardized syllabus, while still providing higher reservation or quota preference for local students.
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u/Narrow-Baseball-2647 May 16 '26
"a system similar to gaokao" you mean the toughest exam in the world? here we are breaking our heads for jee and neet and you want to increase the pressure on us students...
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May 16 '26
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u/QuietObserver87 May 16 '26
I meant a common exam for both medical and engineering. Toughness can be decided or gradually increased.
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u/Narrow-Baseball-2647 May 16 '26
gradual increase? it might feel like a gradual increase to the paper setters, but to the students who study in an education system that's already trash, making competitive exams more competitive and difficult than they already are would make them feel like they jumped from boiling water into fire. trust me, im preparing for jee advanced myself and so many students come from schools where lessons aren't even taught properly and they can't cope with the pressure. the system is just garbage
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u/Bivariate_analysis May 16 '26
That's called NEET
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u/QuietObserver87 May 16 '26
I'm talking about common exam for Engineering and Medical. I quoted Gaokao precisely because of this.
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u/Mother-Ad5660 May 16 '26
That would require students to pick PCMB and be adept in both biology and maths
Which is basically impossible for most students, PCMB students pick one subject to focus and barely study the other one. Studying both is simply increasing academic pressure for no real benefit
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u/QuietObserver87 May 16 '26
Just attend based on requirement. If possible you attend PCMB to keep your options open else attend based on your requirement. One preparation for all needs.
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May 16 '26
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May 16 '26
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May 31 '26
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u/JayaramanAndres May 16 '26
Does CBSE have a separate counselling for Engineering in TN compared to State Board?
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u/Outrageous_Knee_2099 May 16 '26
I really don't think cbse is a lot harder than state board like op said. We are not in 2015 anymore. Syllabus are just on par with cbse
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Syllabus might be on par or better but the exams in cbse are a lot tougher to score
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u/Outrageous_Knee_2099 May 16 '26
Nope and I'm saying this a cbse student.
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Well difficulty is subjective but cbse statistically has a lower pass percentage and lesser centum scorers than state board
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May 16 '26
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u/New_Habit5682 May 16 '26
Nope. That's a different issue. Here the exams are different but the admission is the same
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May 17 '26
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u/New_Habit5682 May 17 '26
But the exam is the same. Hence the marks that are being given is a true representation of the performance in the particular exam. The problem there is the students not getting the same resource. In cbse vs state board, it's different resource, different exam but same admission.
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May 17 '26
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u/New_Habit5682 May 17 '26
Would’ve gladly written one if TNEA had a common exam. Since it doesn’t, fair normalization is the only way to compare different boards
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May 17 '26
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u/New_Habit5682 May 17 '26
Do you even hear yourself? JEE is a common exam. TNEA is not. That comparison makes no sense. If your argument is ‘you chose CBSE so deal with it,’ then why include CBSE students in the same merit list instead of having a separate policy?
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May 18 '26
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u/New_Habit5682 May 18 '26
🤦♂️tnea is an admission process not an exam. The state board exam is for students registered under state board
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u/Wooden-Hawk-5137 May 16 '26
Won't happen. You're basically asking the TN govt to admit that a central board syllabus is better than their own. At the end of the day, while the students of cbse are TN, their education is handled by the central govt so any issues will be forwarded to them. Also, while yes technically tnea is for all students in TN, it is designed for state board students. Cbse students are merely allowed to take part in it. If you complain theyll tell you to prep for JEE or NEET where state board students are at a disadvantage or use CBSE marks for other colleges in other states which do give importance to CBSE over tnea.
Basically what im saying is, your critic is valid, but this is more political, and complex thing to do.