Tips to Conduct Online Entrance Exams using School Management Systems

The advent of online entrance exams proved to be a game-changer for many institutions. It made the process more efficient, secure, and convenient for both the faculty and applicants. But its adoption was optional. The pandemic, however, changed it from a choice to a necessity. Over the last two years, many schools, colleges, universities, and educational institutions have made it the norm to screen their applicants and choose the eligible ones.

Apart from screening the best applicants from the rest, entrance exams are crucial in determining their intelligence, capabilities, areas of interest, and many other things. At MyEdu, we know the importance of entrance exams for educational institutions, and we have built advanced systems to conduct those effectively.

If your educational institution receives a far greater number of applications than the available seats, then conducting an entrance exam is the only way to select the best students. In this blog, we share useful tips and effective ways to conduct entrance exams efficiently.

Why are online entrance exams better than offline exams?

The former can be better managed compared to the latter due to many reasons. We have listed some below.

• Security: The chance of paper leakage in online entrance exams is lower compared to offline exams.
• Fast results: One of the major limitations of offline exams is the time taken for the result declaration. In an online exam, the process is fast and accurate.
• Minimal logistical and examination costs: The costs associated with online exams are considerably lower compared with offline ones. 
• No need for the physical presence of candidates: Extremely beneficial for candidates who live in remote areas and lack the resources to travel to the physical location to take the tests.
• Good for subjective exams: Online exams are compatible with multiple-choice questions, but they are also good for subjective questions.
• Effective supervision: The auto surveillance and monitoring via a webcam are far more effective than the presence of a human invigilator, as the former can track candidates’ overall activities during the exam process.
• Simplification of viva voce: Conducting online oral exams or viva voce for many candidates than offline. All their answers can be recorded at once and reviewed later.
• Result analysis and ranking: These are easy and fast in online exams, whether overall analysis or topic-wise breakdown and ranking.
• Flexible exam management: Online exams provide the flexibility to design exam papers for different candidates as well as evaluate and grade them.
• Safe for faculty and students: Online entrance exams are also safe for faculty and students in an unprecedented situation such as a global pandemic or unrest in a specific region.

How to conduct online exams?

Are you planning to conduct online entrance exams for your educational institution? You can conduct it effectively in the following ways:

1. Determining the needs of the online exam software

At the very outset, you must determine the core needs of the entrance exam software. Ideally, it must be configured depending on the program or course you are providing. After that, you need to find a reliable school management system provider who can equip your institution with suitable online exam software.

2. Defining the exam pattern, rules, and grading

After finding a trustworthy service provider, you need to find an easy-to-use entrance exam software that enables you to:

Define exam pattern: Are you planning to conduct subjective or objective tests?

Define exam rules and regulations: This will sort out the complete examination process.

Define time and needs for the exams.

3. Setting online registration and payment process

The next step is to put the online registration process to enable candidates to register themselves and make the payment. After payment confirmation, they can download the hall tickets.

4. Conducting online remote proctoring

While the exam is in progress, the online proctoring software will enable faculty to monitor candidates and their screen activities. It will eliminate the chances of malpractices and proxies.

5. Auto-calculation of marks

Mark calculation in offline exams can be a tedious and time-consuming process for faculty members. But online exams software automatically calculates marks with high accuracy.

6. Defining weightages of and cutoff for each section

Online exams enable you to define weightages and cut off percentiles for each section, based on which you can accept the eligible candidates and reject the unsuccessful ones.

7. Displaying results online

The online entrance exam software displays results quickly and accurately, thereby eliminating the chances of manual errors.

To Conclude,

Online entrance exams are cost-effective, flexible, and scalable for evaluating a large number of applicants. They can be used to conduct subjective, objective, and psychometric tests. Each assessment type can be tailored to analyze candidates in different areas such as aptitude, talents, academic knowledge, and skill sets.

At MyEdu, we can provide you with an efficient school ERP solution that will enable you to design and conduct entrance exams and simplify the process of choosing the most eligible applicants. To know how we can help your administration department and faculty as well as enable your applicants to take the test from any location, contact our team of experts.