How Are the First 24 Hours after Seeing Your Name in the Final Civil?

How are the first 24 hours after seeing your name in the final Civil services exam merit list? How does life change?

Cut-Off Marks for UPSC Civil Services Exam. Trend Analysis Marks needed to qualify UPSC Civil Services Prelims and Mains has always been a topic of hot discussion and speculation. There are always different rumors around and many candidates are unclear about how UPSC fix the bottom cut-off. That’s why in this post, we have decided to give insights about the Cut-Off Marks for UPSC Civil Services Exam and to share some important statistics collected though RTIs and official UPSC website. Minimum Qualifying Marks in Prelims and Mains Quoting from Civil Services Exam Rules. Candidates who obtain such minimum qualifying marks in the Preliminary Examination as may be fixed by the Commission at their discretion shall be admitted to the Main Examination; and candidates who obtain such minimum qualifying marks in the Main Examination (Written) as may be fixed by the Commission at their discretion shall be summoned by them for an interview for personality test . Provided that candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes may be summoned for an interview for a personality test by the Commission by applying relaxed standards in the Preliminary Examination as well as Main Examination (Written) if the Commission is of the opinion that sufficient number of candidates from these communities are not likely to be summoned for interview for a personality test on the basis of the general standard in order to fill up vacancies reserved for them. UPSC uses the term ‘minimum qualifying mark’ instead of cut-off. This minimum qualifying mark is the mark of the last candidate (in the descending order of marks) who made it to the list, be it Mains list, Interview list or Final Rank list. As per our understanding, the figure just depends on the number of vacancies each year and nothing else. So if there are 313 vacancies under OBC category this year, the mark of the last rank candidate in OBC category becomes the cut-off marks under OBC category. Hope the point is now clear! It should be noted that UPSC normally calls for Civil Services Mains Exam, 12-13 times the number of actual vacancies reported for the corresponding year. For 2013, the number of vacancies reported was 1200, so UPSC called 1200*12.5=approx.15,000 candidates for mains exam from the lakhs who wrote the Prelims. Again, for interview, UPSC calls about twice the number of candidates than the reported vacancies. For 2013, UPSC called about 3000 candidates for interview, which was 2.5 times the number of vacancies. Only 1200, among the 3000 is expected to make it into the final list. Trend Analysis of UPSC Prelims Marks Year Cut-off Marks-- Percentage 2005- 284/450 63.11 2006- 282/450 62.66 2007- 256/450 56.88 2008- 244/450 54.22 2009- 250/450 55.55 2010- 248/450 55.11 2011— 198/400 49.5 2012- 209/400 52.25 2013- 241/400 60.25 2014- 205/400 51.25 2015- 107.34/200 53.67 Mains and Mains+Interview Marks (Total Marks) of Last Recommended Candidate in UPSC Civil Services Examination Year Mains Marks (out of 2000) of the last candidate (General Category) Mains Percentage of the last candidate (%)(General Category) Mains+Interview (out of 2300) marks of the last candidate (General Category) Mains+Interview Percentage of the last candidate (%) (General Category) 2005- 986 49.3 1203 52.3 2006- 975 48.75 1179 51.26 2007- 1005 50.25 1210 52.6 2008- 954 47.7 1161 50.47 2009- 899 44.95 1127 49 2010- 904 45.2 1134 49.3 2011- 842 42.1 1090 47.39 2012- 700 35 936 40.69 2013- 562 [out of 1750] 32.1 775 [out of 2025] 38.27 2014— 678 [out of 1750] 38.74 889 [out of 2025] 43.90 2015— 676 [out of 1750] 38.62 877 [out of 2025] 43.30 Trend Analysis of UPSC Interview Marks Interview marks in 2012 ranged from 90 to 245 out of the maximum possible 300. This means the marks varied from 30 percent to 80 percent, which is a very big range. The median of the interview marks were in the 55-60 percentage range. From 2013, the total possible marks for interview is reduced to 275, but the percentage variations is expected to continue. The near 50 percent difference between the top and bottom marks in interview comes out around 140 marks, which is by now means a meager thing to neglect! That difference is enough to shatter hopes of many and enough to give wings to the hopes of otheenoug What is the cut-off score to make it to the final rank list in UPSC Civil Services Exam? It all depends on the vacancies in category or community you are from. UPSC prepares separate rank list for those under General Category, OBC, SC, ST etc and you have to make sure that you rank well within the number of vacancies listed in each category to be in the final rank list. Also be clear that the ‘General Vacancies’ are always filled on merit, and that means that all other categories can get into the vacancies mentioned under General Vacancies, and not just general category candidates. There is no reservation for general category candidates. But the vacancies reserved for separate categories are only open to those respective candidates, and since t are reserved, there is no competition based on open-merit in these vacancies. Ok. Back to the topic. Do you have any idea what was the minimum percentage of marks (General Category) required to make it into any of the 24 services for which UPSC conducts Civil Services Examination, during last few years? No, it’s not in the eighties or nineties. You might be surprised, in 2012 the total percentage of marks of the last recommended candidate from General Category was around 40 percent! The ‘cut-off’ percentage of marks of other categories like OBC, CS and ST were 1-3 % lower than the general category. It should also be specially noted that the percentage of marks for All India Topper was 51.8% in 2012! Toppers’ Percentage range between 40 percent and 50 percent! Percentage of All India Topper in UPSC Civil Services Exam was around 60 percent some five-six years back. But it began to fall down later, obviously due to tougher questions and tougher evaluations! And in 2012 the topper’s percentage (AIR 1) was around 51.8 and the last recommended candidate in general category (AIR 668 and General Category Rank 434) scored 40.69. With tight stricter evaluations and more importance to general studies papers, in coming years the UPSC toppers‘ percentage has every chance to fall down further. After all, this exam is not CBSE class 10th or 12th to get high scores of 95-99 percentages! And marks don’t matter much in a competitive exam, only relative performances . Thanks for viewing.