Slow start to admissions
The admission frenzy was missing at most of the DU colleges on Day 1 of enrollments as students preferred to take time to decide on the course and college. Swaha Sahoo reports. Special: Campus calling
As Delhi University colleges began their undergraduate admission process on Friday, majority of applicants preferred to wait and watch. The admission frenzy was missing as students took time to decide on the course and college.
Sri Ram College of Commerce saw the highest Day 1 enrollments with 166 students taking admission in B.Com (H) and 51 in BA (H) Economics. Hans Raj admitted 50 students in B.Com (H) and 16 in Economics. SGTB Khalsa got good response from students with 19 students taking admission in B.Com (H) and 17 in Economics.
“We were not expecting such good response on Day 1. We had reduced the cut-off for BCom (H) since we didn’t want to lose out on good students,” said Jaswinder Singh, principal, SGTB Khalsa College.
However, Lady Sri Ram College, which has declared the highest cut-off for BCom (H) at 95.5 per cent, saw relatively fewer students. “We can’t give out the exact number of students who took admission but the response was not very good,” said Kanika Khandelwal, media coordinator.
Even with a 95 per cent cut-off for B.Com (H), Shri Venkateswara College was able to pull in quite a number of students. The final tally at the end of the day for B.Com (H) stood at 24. The college admitted 245 students in various courses.
Hindu College received a lacklustre response from students with just 10 admissions in B.Com (H) and only one in Economics. The popular BA Programme too saw only three admissions. In Kirori Mal College, no students in the general category took admission in B.Com (H). In fact, B.Com programme has proved to be more popular with 19 admissions.
Colleges like Deen Dayal Upadhayaya, ARSD, Satyawati Co-Ed, College of Vocational Studies, which have cut-offs of 90 per cent and above for B.Com (H), saw a trickle of students ranging from eight to 15.
For English, students queued up in colleges with reasonable cut-offs in the range of 85 to 90. Once again LSR, with the highest cut-off at 93 per cent, saw the least number of admissions. “Maximum number of students had applied for the English course but genuinely interested candidates have all scored in the 80s,” said a source in the English Department.
Hindu College, with 90 per cent as its cut-off marks for BA English (H), admitted only seven candidates. IP College also admitted six students. But Miranda House, with the cut-off at 87, filled 50 per cent of its seats. Hans Raj College admitted 35 students in English while Ramjas took in 14. Students also did not turn up in huge numbers for the popular BA Programme. While Hindu admitted just three students, SGTB Khalsa, which has 90 seats for this course, admitted seven. Hans Raj admitted 26 and the response was better at IP College, which admitted 30 students.
“Students will first opt for subjects like Economics, Psychology, Political Science, Sociology, etc, before turning to BA Programme. So we expect the seats to fill up in the second list,” said Singh.
Poor response from OBC students
Despite the hoopla about OBC reservation, candidates did not turn up in huge numbers to avail the quota. While SRCC admitted 10 OBC category students, popular colleges like Hindu and Miranda had only one admission each under this category.
(With inputs from Karan Choudhry)