Most seats taken in a day, second allocation list unlikely in top DU colleges

Between the launch and 6pm on Thursday, at least 60,000 of the of the 80,164 applicants offered a seat through the Common Seat Allocation System had accepted.

New Delhi: Several Delhi University colleges, especially those on campus, are likely to lock down batches for their most sought-after courses soon, officials in these institutions said on Thursday, a day after a drastically new admission process was launched.

New Delhi, India - July 4, 2019: Students arrive to fill their admission forms for the new academic session as Delhi University released its second cut off list, at Miranda House, in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, July 4, 2019. (Photo by Sanchit Khanna / Hindustan Times) (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

Between the launch at 5pm and 6pm on Thursday, at least 60,000 of the of the 80,164 applicants offered a seat through the Common Seat Allocation System had accepted.

“Colleges have started verification and approval process for 39,526 candidates,” DU Registrar Vikas Gupta said.

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.

Gupta added that about 50% of admissions are already under process. “The chances of the second round (of allocation) in campus colleges are almost nil but we will know for sure after the first round,” he said.

Officials at several popular on-campus colleges too said that a large number of students with high CUET scores have already confirmed admissions.

Anju Srivastava, principal of Hindu College, said that over 1,200 candidates have been allocated admission at their college against the sanctioned 950 seats – the excess seat offers was a conscious choice by many institutions since they expect at least some of the applicants to eventually drop out.

“The college has approved admissions of 380 candidates by Thursday evening and the highest accepted CUET scores in BA(H) Political Science, BA(H) English, and BA(H) Sociology was 800 or 100%, and the lowest were 797.82, 774.83, and 766.22 respectively. We are yet to verify the applications of all candidates,” she said.

This year, over 150,000 students applied and of these, 80,164 of the highest scorers have been offered a seat.

Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) principal Simrit Kaur said that a large number of 100% scorers in CUET have been allotted seats in her college and many of them were from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board.

At Miranda House, the maximum CUET scores of candidates allotted seats in courses English (Hons) and Political Science (Hons) stood at 100%. The highest accepted CUET score in Economics (Hons) was 753. “The lowest accepted scores in English (Hons), Political Science (Hons), and Economics (Hons) were 787, 760, and 715, respectively,” an official at the college said, adding that around 500 admissions were approved by the college by Thursday evening.

The rush remained high in other popular colleges as well. Ramjas College principal Manoj Khanna said that the college has accepted nearly 650 students as of Thursday late evening and verified the documents of around 650 candidates.

“We have around 1,600 seats in total and against which over 2,000 students have been offered admissions in the first list. More students have been allocated admissions in comparison to the number of seats available anticipating that not all students will accept,” he said.

Explaining the reason behind allocating more students than the number of seats, the DU Registrar said, “This is a buffer in case students do not take admission and the university will not have to allocate seats in another round. “We wish to start the session at the earliest possible. The buffer is there in case dropouts take place, they shouldn’t lead to cascading effect.”

Indraprastha College for Women Principal Rekha Sethi said that they have verified the applications of around 600-700 candidates by Thursday. “Of the 1,380 sanctioned seats, 1,287 candidates have already accepted the admissions offered to them. The highest accepted score in the college was in BA(H) Psychology at 792.8 CUET score while the highest accepted scores in BCom (H), BA(H) English, BA(H) History, BA (H) Economics, and Mathematics (H) were 769.8, 758.6, 757.9, 693.7, 611.6 respectively,” she said.

Sethi said that while it is early to say, it is possible that they will be able to close admission in a few courses in the first round including BA (H) Political Science, BCom (H), BA (H) Psychology, BSc Computer Science, and BA (H) English.

In off-campus colleges, admissions were offered at lower CUET scores as well. For instance, in Rajdhani College, the seats were allotted in several courses including English (Hons), Economics (Hons), and History (Hons) on less than 700 CUET scores.