DU admissions: Little on offer in top colleges

However, the DU list reveals that there is scope for hope for aspirants in certain courses and colleges, especially those off-campus and in the south campus

The Delhi University on Wednesday released a list of vacant seats, a day after the varsity closed the first round of seat allocations, with several top colleges, including Sri Ram College of Commerce, St Stephen’s College, Hindu College and Lady Sri Ram College closing admission to most courses in the general category.

Students set up a help desk for admission seekers under the new CUET process of Delhi University at North Campus. (PTI)

However, the list reveals that there is scope for hope for aspirants in certain courses and colleges, especially those off-campus and in the south campus.

On Tuesday, around 59,100 candidates of the 80,164 who were allocated seats had secured admission under the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) in the first round of seat allocation. The university subsequently opened a window for candidates who have secured their admission to upgrade and reorder their higher preference, which closes at 5pm on October 27.

DU officials aware of the matter said that as of 7.30pm on Wednesday, 21,312 students had opted for upgradation of their seats. They said that the upgrade option will not be available for those who have been allocated their first preference of course and college.

This is the first time Delhi University is enrolling students on the basis of the common university entrance test (CUET) at the undergraduate level. Until last year, admissions took place on the basis of a student’s Class 12 performance.

A perusal of the list of vacant seats released by the university reveals that Sri Ram College of Commerce, Hindu College, Ramjas College, Kirori Mal College, Hansraj College and St Stephens College have closed admissions in the general category for courses like BA (H) Economics, English, History, Political Science, and B.Com (H).

However, some of these colleges have vacant seats in Science courses. For instance, St Stephens has two vacant seats in BSc (H) Chemistry, five in BSc (H) Physics, and two in BSc (Programme). Ramjas has nine seats in BSc (H) Botany, 12 in BSc (H) Chemistry and nine in BSc (H) Physics. Hindu College has eight seats in BSc (H) Botany, six in BSc (H) Chemistry, eight in BSc (H) Physics, and eight in BSc (H) Zoology. SRCC has 3 seats vacant in reserved categories, the list showed.

Meanwhile, certain colleges that come under the purview of south campus, including Sri Venkateswara College and Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College had several vacant seats for Science course. However, Lady Sri Ram College had few, if any seats vacant in the general category.

Several off-campus colleges still have vacant seats. For example, Acharya Narendra Dev College has 11 seats in BSc (H) Computer Science, 10 in BSc (H) Physics and seven in BSc (H) Mathematics, while Shyam Lal College has seven seats in BCom (H) and three seats in BA (H) English.

Some courses too have several empty seats across colleges. For example, several top colleges have vacancies for their BSc (H) Physics course, including St Stephen’s (five), Sri Venketeswara College (six), Hindu (eight) and Kirori Mal (14).

Registrar Vikas Gupta said the university was not expecting that so many seats will be vacant after the first allocation round. “We were in fact expecting that most of the colleges will close admissions after the first round. But it turned out that some student didn’t make the right preferences. We kept telling them time and again to come choose maximum preferences and wisely,” he said.

A DU official on condition of anonymity said, “The candidates who opt for upgradation will be automatically upgraded based on the allocation policy. If a new preference is allocated, the claim for earlier seat admitted stands forfeited automatically leading to its auto cancellation. It is important to note, that a candidate who gets upgraded will have to apply to accept the upgraded seat and complete the admission procedures on the upgraded allocated seat within the stipulated time frame.”

Talking about colleges rejecting the candidature of certain students, registrar Gupta said, “The university looked into the rejected cases and there was no reason for them to interfere with the decision of the college.”

The number of students whose application was rejected by colleges was not immediately known.

The university will release a second list on October 30, after which students can “accept” the allotted seat till 4.59pm on November 1. A third list, if required, will be published on November 10.