Phase 2 of DU admissions marred by technical glitches

While students said that they were unable to access the portal for registering their course and college preferences, DU officials said that the second phase had started but was marred by “technical glitches”

New Delhi: The second phase of Delhi University’s undergraduate admission process could not take off on Monday even as the university issued a statement saying that the process had been initiated.

Several students on Monday said that they were unable to proceed to the second part of the process on DU’s Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) portal (HT Photo)

While students said that they were unable to access the portal for registering their course and college preferences, DU officials said that the second phase had started but was marred by “technical glitches”.

Several students on Monday said that they were unable to proceed to the second part of the process on DU’s Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) portal since the tab was not live till Monday night.

Anirudh, a DU aspirant who goes by his first name, said, “The second phase is not showing on the portal right now although the university authorities have released the notification about its initiation. I think they will start it late in the night.”

Delhi University registrar Vikas Gupta said that the portal was facing some technical stress owing to the large number of course-college combinations. “The second phase was started but owing to the large number of course-college combinations, there is some technical strain. The system is mapping the various combinations and it should go live anytime. We need to understand that this process is taking place for the first time and on a large scale,” said Gupta.

Under the second phase of admission process the students will choose courses and college combinations according to their preference—a crucial development since the order of preference will be the key factor that will decide the allotment of colleges to the aspirants.

Students who have applied to the varsity, however, faced problems while registering their details on the CSAS. The CSAS was launched by the university this year as it switched to admissions through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) instead of the cut-off lists based on Class 12 scores.

Gaurav Garg, 18, who is seeking admission to DU colleges, said he had heard that the portal reopened by evening but he did not access it since he was waiting for the varsity to conduct orientation sessions before students were asked to provide course-college preferences. “I am aware that the second phase of the process has started. However, I will wait for a while before choosing the preferences. We still have doubts, especially pertaining to the usage of normalised scores for merit calculation. I think the normalisation is disadvantageous for people who switch streams. I hope to get clarity during the orientation sessions,” said Garg, a Delhi resident.

In a statement issued on Monday evening, Gupta said the second phase of the CSAS will continue till October 10.

“The candidate will first map their CUET(UG)-2022 test papers/subjects with the subjects s(he) has passed in Class 12 boards. The candidate will be able to see his/her Program-Specific CUET score, based on the CUET’s normalised score, for all the programs in which (he/she) is eligible. These Program-Specific CUET scores will be auto-calculated and displayed on the dashboard of the candidate,” said Gupta.

After furnishing personal details in the first phase of CSAS, candidates will be able to select and order his/her preferences under preference selection. The “available preferences” tab on the admission portal will display all the possible programmes and college combinations the candidate can choose from. Candidates will be able to use a filter to select the college as well as the programmes.

The varsity reiterated that students must choose the maximum number of preferences since adding/editing the courses and colleges will not be allowed once the deadline for this phase is over. “The candidate will have to choose and order the preferences as per his/her choice. The order of selection will also determine the preference order. The candidate can use preference numbers to reorder preferences,” said the university in its statement.

DU will also conduct a series of public awareness webinars/orientation sessions from Tuesday during which students will get a chance to get clarity on the admission process. On September 29, a public awareness session on admissions to undergraduate courses offered under the sports and extracurricular activity quota will take place.

Sanjeev Singh, joint dean, admissions, said that the schedule for trials will be released by September 29.

No normalisation of marks for PG courses

Unlike CUET-UG, no normalisation of scores has been done for the Common University Entrance Test for postgraduate admissions, according to UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar.

The results for the CUET-PG were announced on Monday.

“No normalisation of scores has been done in CUET-PG and the universities will prepare rank lists on the basis of ‘raw marks’ and not NTA scores,” Kumar said.

In CUET-UG, results of which were announced on September 16, the scores were normalised and the UGC had announced that rank lists will be prepared on the basis of normalised National Testing Agency (NTA) scores.

Asked about the reasons behind no normalisation of scores in CUET-PG, Kumar said, “The PG exam was held in a single sitting for the majority of subjects, while in the UG exam, the test was conducted in different phases and shifts. Hence, scores had to be normalised to provide a level playing field for all candidates.”Unlike CUET-UG, the NTA has also announced subject-wise toppers for the postgraduate entrance exam.