Cut-Off Marks Soar, Footfall Declines in DU Colleges

New Delhi, June 26, 2015: High cut-off percentages across most courses kept many students away from seeking admission to Delhi University colleges on Thursday, the first day of this year's admission process.

Colleges like Kamala Nehru, Gargi, College of Vocational Studies, Hansraj, Kirori Mal, Lady Shri Ram, Hindu and St. Stephen's saw comparatively less number of students on the first day of the admissions.

"There can be multiple reasons for less rush on the first day of admissions today (Thursday).

One can be the cut-off announced by the colleges which is very high this year," I.S. Bakshi, principal, Dyal Singh College, told IANS.

Bakshi said that another possible reason could be that the applicants consult their friends and families before making a decision.

Reiterating the same, Anamika Saini, a student volunteer at Kamala Nehru College told IANS: "Due to the soaring cut off, student rush was below expectation.

However, we had enquiries for BA Programme and BCom as the cut off percentage for both courses is not that high."

"We had about 400-500 admissions on the first day.

We expect huge crowd after the second and third cut-off list is out," Saini told IANS.

Even at Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, the crowd was sparse.

"So far the most-sought courses have been Psychology, History and Hindi. The rush was slow for courses like Economics, B.Com (Hons) and Journalism," Kanika K. Ahuja, media coordinator and associate professor, department of psychology at LSR, told IANS.

High cut-off marks seemed to be the culprit again as the college had affixed 98 per cent as the cut-off marks for Economics and BCom (Hons) and 98.5 percent for Journalism.

Meanwhile, the College of Vocational Studies, where the cut-off percentage for BSC Computer Science (Hons) was a perfect 100 percent for students who have not studied Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics saw just three admissions in BA Vocational Course on the first day.

"Due to high cut-off percentage, there were just three admissions," said an official at the college.

A student, Karuna Chaudhury from Rajasthan, who narrowly missed a course at Ramjas College said: "I was expecting to get through Ramjas College for BSc (Hons) in Botany but missed it by two percent.

Finally, I secured admission in Gargi, where the cut-off percentage for the course for OBC category is 86 percent.

My best of four is 87.3 percent."

IANS