CUET may help DU tackle over admissions, say teachers

Until last year, admissions to DU undergraduate courses were done on the basis of cutoff marks premised on Class 12 board exam scores

With the declaration of the CUET-UG results, Delhi University has stepped one step closer to the implementation of its new admission policy through which students will be admitted to over 70,000 UG seats based on the CUET score. While many students and school heads are worried that a high number of 100 percentile scorers would adversely impact students’ prospects of securing a seat in DU, college principals and DU officials have clarified that the varsity will prepare merit based on normalised scores.

In October last year, Delhi University vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh formulated a committee to deliberate upon undergraduate admission reforms. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Until last year, admissions to DU undergraduate courses were done on the basis of cutoff marks premised on Class 12 board exam scores. All applicants who met the cut-off criteria announced by the varsity for a particular course were eligible for admission to that course. However, the cut-off-based admission system grappled with issues such as over-admission, under-admission, and staggering cutoffs.

In October last year, Delhi University vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh formulated a committee to deliberate upon undergraduate admission reforms. In its report, the committee concluded that granting admission on the basis of cut-off was fraught with fluctuations and advocated for an entrance exam-based approach to admission in its interim report. The proposal of the committee was eventually approved by the highest statutory bodies of Delhi Universities.

Manoj Khanna, principal of Ramjas College, which announced a 100% cutoff for admissions to political science, physics and BA programme last year, said that the CUET will help to tackle the problem of over-admission that colleges grappled with under the previous cutoff-based process. “Every year, colleges would end up admitting twice or thrice the number of students. This is a new experiment but the possibility of over-admission is over to a large extent,” said Khanna.

Khanna said that it was crucial for stakeholders to spread awareness about the importance of the normalised score among students. “Merit will be based on the normalised scores. Earlier, we did not have a normalised system. Board scores were not normalised due to which there was no parity. It was difficult to segregate students since different boards had different moderation policies. Now, we have a common system,” he said.

Nearly 20,000 students have scored 100percentile in thirty subjects in CUET-UG. This has led to reservations from students and educators who say that a high CUET score for many students might yet again create a problem of over-admission. Khanna, however, disagreed. “When the combined merit for different combinations based on normalised CUET scores is created, we won’t find too many students with the same score. We need to keep in mind that admission will be based on normalised scores, not the percentile,” said Khanna.

He, however, added that the university would need to take a relook at the process next year to keep over-admission in check. Khanna said that the situation might vary across both North and South campuses since a greater number of students may seek a seat in North Campus colleges.

To facilitate a faster allocation and admission process, the university will admit 20% extra students in each course in each college under the categories of general (unreserved), other backward classes (OBC), and economically weaker section categories (EWS). Similarly, 30% extra allocations for each course in each college will be made under scheduled caste(SC)/scheduled tribe(ST)/persons with benchmark disability (PwBD) categories.

Other college heads said that it was too early to predict the admission cycle. Kalpana Bhakuni, principal of Kamala Nehru College, said that it was too early to gauge the impact of CUET results on the admission situation in colleges. “We will have to wait and watch how the situation develops. It’s a new system this time. While there are concerns among students about the number of 100percentile scorers, they should rely on the university’s admission policy,” said Bhakuni.

Manoj Sinha, principal of Aryabhatta College and secretary of the DU principals association, said that while there was a possibility that multiple candidates might end up with a similar score in a national level exam, DU had put in a tie-breaking mechanism to discern students from one another for admission. “Candidate scoring a higher aggregate in class 12 will get a preference over other candidates with the same CUET score. If the tie is still not broken, ages of candidates will be compared and the candidate with the higher age will be given preference,” said Sinha.

He said that the university was yet to brief principals about the modalities of college-level admissions, but principals had been asked to prepare themselves for the possibility of over-admissions since the entrance test was taking place for the first time. “The vice chancellor has said asked principals to accommodate more students wherever possible accordingly principals are making preparations,” said Sinha.