Students happy with drop in BA cut-off

A significant drop in the cut-offs for Humanities courses in the second list declared by Delhi University colleges seems to have worked. Admissions across most courses in the stream picked up on Monday after the second list was declared.

A significant drop in the cut-offs for Humanities courses in the second list declared by Delhi University colleges seems to have worked. Admissions across most courses in the stream picked up on Monday after the second list was declared.

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In the first cut-off list, Hansraj College had declared the cut-off for BA (programme) between 80 and 88 per cent, which dropped to 75-87.25. “The BA (programme) is already full. After today’s rush I feel we should have decreased the percentage only marginally,” said V.K. Kawatra, principal, Hansraj College.

At Miranda House, Honours courses in political science, history, philosophy and sociology witnessed a huge rush. Off-campus colleges such as Gargi and Kamla Nehru, too, reported a high number of admissions in the arts courses. “If the trend continues, we may end up admitting a lot more than the allotted number of seats,” said Meera Ramchandran, principal of Gargi College.

While BCom (H), too, picked up, a good number of seats for BCom (programme) are yet to be taken which is witnessing withdrawals. “After a drop in the percentages a lot of students have upgraded to the BCom (H) programme,” said Ramchandran.

The science courses made a come back this year with most colleges closing the admissions for courses such as Physics (H) and Chemistry (H) in the first list itself. However, some of them — BSc Physical Science, BSc Life Science and BSc Botany (H) — failed to woo students despite a drop in the cut-offs in the second list.

“Though BSc Physical Science picked up a bit, the overall response in the BSc (programme) is not very encouraging as compared to other science courses even after cut-offs were lowered,” said I.S. Bakshi, principal, Dyal Singh College.

Teachers said preference of honours courses could be one of the reasons. Also the fact that students have not been familiarised with the new content of the BSc (programme) may have prevented them from opting for the courses. “These courses have been restructured in the semester system but haven’t been well publicised, so students are not aware of the content,” Bakshi said.

He said the third list, with a further drop of three-four per cent, might attract students.