Class XII results from Tamil Nadu

Girls have done better than boys. I'm not surprised. Here's the Hindu's main report:

Led by Chennai students, [girls] had an 84.6 overall pass percentage, compared to 77.4 by boys. The girls' performance this year was better than last year (75.4 per cent), while boys did better by 7.2 percentage points.

The overall pass percentage in the State this year is 81, compared to last year's 72.9 ...

... [A] total of 5,55,965 students (2,66,850 boys and 2,89,115 girls) ... took the March examinations, 3,29,091 scored an aggregate of 60 per cent and above ...

I get the impression that girls have not only done better than boys, they also seem to have taken a large number of top positions (see a few other reports here, here, and here). These reports don't have details such as the boys/girls ratio among the top 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 and 50,000. It would be wonderful if these details are publicized.

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The scene in Tamil Nadu is worth watching because this year, the state has chosen to get rid of the state-level Common Entrance Test (CET). Thus, the admissions are going to be based purely on Class XII marks. The government has announced that it will normalize the marks of students belonging to different boards. [However, I have no idea about how this normalization is going to be done.]

Going by these reports, it looks like girls are going to storm into the state's top engineering and medical colleges. In huge, unprecedented numbers! Dr. Bruno has been telling me repeatedly that the removal of the entrance exams in Tamil Nadu is going to favour women so much that he wouldn't be surprised if women form 60 or 70 percent of the students in top colleges. He also expects this situation to be 'corrected' soon -- probably through a re-introduction of the entrance exam!