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Computers are not hard to find in administrative departments of today’s educational institutions. A lot of internal processes like fee collection, attendance, payroll, etc. have been automated. Obviously, this has helped the administrative staff immensely. However, there is still a very large population who are directly dealing with institutions, still with age old inefficient processes. The students and parent’s interaction with school’s processes is still rudimentary and paper based. One such area is admissions.

Admissions are still manual in most of the educational institutions. This goes from Kindergarten, all the way to several degree level courses. General admission process is:

1. Student/Parent buy prospectus from the school.
2. Student/Parent fill paper-based admission form.
3. Admission form submitted to school.
4. Administrative staff take over admission form – collect, organize and process.
5. Collect and verify related documents.
6. Shortlist students, invite them to accept admission.
7. Repeat the process until all seats are full.

The entire processes are laborious, inefficient, error prone and time consuming. long queues of students and parents under scorching sun is not uncommon. Students have to run from school to school, to submit forms in choice of their institution in time. A lot of resource are spent photocopying documents, printing forms, etc.

The cost incurred is not just for students but for institutions as well. Usually, admissions are time driven with a very short window. Schools has to have additional staff to help accept, review and organize documents. While students are queued up, staff also needs to be on the field, to manage queues and maintain order. Selection process is usually rushed and hence error prone. Add government regulations in admissions, the process becomes even more difficult. Being manual, it is hard to audit accountability and impose high standards. Needless to say, a perfect breeding ground for corruption as well.

Fortunately, the process is repeatable and pretty much standardized across institutions. Which means, automation can help here as well. it is high time for schools to adopt online admission processes. A typical online admission will be like following:

1. School publishes prospectus online.
2. Students review prospectus and make choices for subjects.
3. Student open online admission form from their home computer or mobile device, fill it up and submit the form.
4. Student takes pictures of relevant documents and upload them along with online form.
5. School can review all the forms along with documents at their office right away.
6. Smartness is built into Server to organize, sort, and verify information.
7. With a click of a button, online admission system run pre-configured algorithm to select students and order them in a prioritized list. Top students from this list can now be invited to join the school.
8. Invitation is sent via email/sms. A list is also published and printed on school premises.
9. Interested students visit the school with original documents. Verification is done, fee paid and Voila! Admissions done.

Some of the Education Institutes already follow the online admissions system, while most others are yet to set it up. A cloud based application doesn’t cost much but can make a huge impact on your admission process.