With Delhi University admission cut offs expected to hover above 95% this year, students with lower aggregates face a big problem. Patriot takes a look  

On Friday colleges in the Delhi University released their first cut off lists for the admission process which is to be held online. However, the news that grabbed eyeballs was that the cut off was hooked between 98-100 % for courses like B.Com (honours), English, Political Science and Computer Science.

For admissions to eight colleges, the cut off was at 100% for 11 courses. Most colleges, including those of South Campus, where cut off usually remained around 90%, this year they kept it above 95%. For instance Aryabhatta College’s college kept 91% as the cut off for Political Science in 2019 but this year it is 96%.

Even on the first day of the admissions, colleges are facing over admission. The Hindu college has processed 70 applications for just 49 seats with a perfect score of 100. Similarly, other colleges like Lady Shri Ram, Ramjas and Hansraj received more applications than they anticipated. Admission with first cut off will go on till wednesday and students can pay the fee by Friday 5 PM.

Although, in some colleges like Gargi, Satyawati, Bharati, Vivekananda, Aryabhatta, Swami Shraddhanand the admission process used to take off from the second cut off– their lower cut offs made securing seats easier for students. This year, that may not be the case, as cut offs might not come down enough.

The reason behind this is the CBSE result. This year 70,004 candidates who appeared for 12th board scored above 95%, while last year 38,686 scored above 95% — a leap of 80 % forced colleges to keep their first cut off upto 100%. Not just that, the state boards were also generous in markings this year. In Karnataka as many as 2,239 candidates scored full marks in their pre-University exams.

The old debate about disadvantage to state board candidates is still there, but when more and more state boards are giving high marks, the gap is waning with more students scoring full marks.

So, it seems that the cut-off may not go down as much as it used to. Last year, before the second cut off around half of the seats were filled. And if the same continues, the cut off is unlikely to go below 90% for the majority of courses — even cut off for off campus colleges may remain high.

Last year, Lady Shri Ram College pegged the 100% cut off for three popular courses — Political Science, Psychology, and Economics. But when seats were not filled, it came down marginally by 0.25%. First rank holder on National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), Miranda House also marginally reduced the cut off. So, this year when the cut off is 100 percent for most courses — and many takers are already there — it seems that top colleges wouldn’t bring the cut off down.

However, candidates often switch colleges, and cancel their admission, first when cut offs go down, and second when other entrance exam results are out. But it doesn’t affect top colleges as their seats get filled by first or second cut offs. So it would be interesting to see how much it goes down for other colleges. Generally, DU has to announce upto 10- 12 cut-offs, due to candidates canceling their admission in later stages.

“A candidate who ‘applied’ in any cut off and for whom the admission was ‘Approved by Principal’ in a particular programme college. But had not paid the fees, wishing to seek admission in any subsequent cut-off will have to “cancel” his/her previously approved application and re-apply for a programme college combination and repeat the process. A non-refundable cancellation fee of ₹1,000 will be levied”, said the guidelines.

DU has a provision, if a candidate from reserved category qualifies for the unreserved category, they are given admission in unreserved category to open up more seats for reserved category. Anvir Aeijaz, the head of the political science and BA programme department at Ramjas College, told HT, that they received a total 16 applications with perfect 100, out of which 11 were from students from reserved category. Most of them came from Kerala state board. “So It was a good decision to peg the cut off at 100%.”

Students, who took admission, said that the process was smooth and glitch free. Shuruchi, who took admission in Aryabhatta college this year said, “I have taken admission, but have not paid the fee yet. I will wait for the next cut offs.”

Second cut off is to be announced on Saturday. 

(Cover: A member of Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) burns a placard during a protest against the high cut-offs in DU for undergraduate admissions, at Delhi University’s north campus, on October 4, 2021 PHOTO: Getty Images)