The Indian Civil Services Exam too seems to be going the way of the other prestigious all-India entrance exams such as the Common Aptitude Test (CAT), meant for MBA admissions.
According to the results of last year’s Civil Services Exam announced today, Engineers increased their domination of the results. In the latest results, engineers account for 15 of the top 25, higher than the tally of 13 posted last year and 9 in 2008.
The domination of Engineers has come at the expense of Arts, Science and Commerce graduates. The number of ‘regular graduates’ among the top 25 ranks has dropped to just 5 from 9 last year and 12 in the year before.
Medical students continued to see a constant representation in the range of 3-5 out of the top 25.
Another interesting statistic was the tremendous increase in those who apply for the exam to join India’s elite bureaucratic force.
A total of 5.48 lakh students applied for the exam in 2010, compared to 4.09 lakh in 2009 and just 3.19 lakh that applied in 2008.
In keeping with the pro-Engineering bias in the top 25, the representation of women in the top group was just 5 — or 20%. Last year, it was 10.
Once considered the premier exam in the country, the Civil Services exam has lost much of its charm in the recent years as youngsters have re-oriented themselves towards cracking the nation-wide MBA entrance exam, the CAT.
920 candidates (including 203 women) have been recommended for appointment to services such as general administration, forest administration, police etc., up from 875 last year.
The top rank in this year’s results was scroed by S.Divyadharshini, a B.A., B.L. graduate from Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Chennai.
The second ranker is Sweta Mohanty, B.Tech (Computer Science) from GRIET, JNTU, Hyderabad, while RV Varun Kumar, who has done BDS from Ragas Dental College, Chennai, came third.