Presidency University will offer provisional admission to students of international schools on the basis of their predicted grades and performance in the entrance test from this year.

Students of international schools — there are at least five in the city — have not been able to apply to study at Presidency till now because their results are published in July-August, by when undergraduate admissions are over.

A candidate for the International Baccalaureate diploma or the A level (under the Cambridge International Examinations and/or the Edexcel board) had to lose a year if he or she wanted to study at Presidency, where the admission process begins in June.

Such a candidate can now seek admission to Presidency without losing a year on the basis of his/her predicted grade and appear for the entrance exam if it meets the cut. Provisional admission will be on the basis of the predicted grade as well as the entrance test performance.

“If someone’s final grade is lower than the predicted grade, the admission will be cancelled. But usually predicted grades are conservative and lower than actual grades,” said a Presidency official.

For International Baccalaureate and A-level students, the predicted grades are based on the “mock” exams held in March and the performance over two years. “For the A-level students, in their statements of results (mark sheets) marks are mentioned along with the grades. The universities can look at those marks. While giving predicted grades, schools can also produce the results of the AS level (at the end of Class XI),” said Anuradha Das, director, Garden High International School.

Calcutta University has been allowing students of international schools provisional admission on the basis of predicted grades in select colleges, including Lady Brabourne, Loreto and Bethune, for at least two years.

“By the time the results for the International Baccalaureate and the A-level are published, the admission process at city colleges are over. As a result we were losing at least 50 per cent of our good students to the colleges in western and southern India,” said Satyajit Banerjee, the director of Calcutta International School, who had taken up the matter with Presidency.

Outside Bengal, Christ College in Bangalore, Fergusson and Symbiosis colleges in Pune, and institutions affiliated to the University of Bombay accept predicted grades.

Representatives of city-based international schools — such as Calcutta International, Cambridge International and The Heritage — had last year met then Presidency vice-chancellor Malabika Sarkar and requested her to accept the predicted grades so their students could study at the university without losing a year.

In a letter to Sarkar in September 2013, Banerjee of Calcutta International School had written: “...the predicted grades are uploaded on the respective websites, based on which some of the most prestigious institutions across the world offer admission to our students.”

Sarkar, according to sources, had taken up the matter at the last meeting of the Presidency University Council held in January. The council passed a resolution allowing provisional admission of students of international schools.

The decision on provisional admission was approved by the Presidency admissions committee at a meeting last week called by vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia.

“To expand the pool of bright students we require students from international schools. In the absence of the facility there was a flight of students to other states. So we were keen to introduce the provisional admission,” said Somak Raychaudhury, the dean of science at Presidency and a member of the admissions committee.

Presidency University registrar Prabir Dasgupta, who is also convener of the admissions committee, said the notification allowing provisional admission on the basis of predicted grades and the admission test performance would be issued shortly.

Calcutta International School and The Heritage School introduced the International Baccalaureate diploma programme for classes XI and XII in July 2012.

Calcutta International School offers the A-level course, too.

In the International Baccalaureate programme, students write the final exams from the first to the third week of May. The results are published by the first week of July.

As of now, the A-level students write the final exams in May-June. The results come out by August.

“Our students get berths in institutes like Boston University, the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics.... But most parents prefer their children to be here for their undergraduate study and move out only for their postgraduation. This (the move by Presidency) will open up options (for our students) in the city,” said Seema Sapru, the principal of The Heritage School.

Additional reporting by Jhinuk Mazumdar