Change stream to get confused

Students applying to DU from science and humanities streams are a confused lot. Most of this confusion stems from the variance in cut-offs for some of the university's courses. Shaswati Das reports.

Students applying to DU from science and humanities streams are a confused lot. Most of this confusion stems from the variance in cut-offs for some of the university's courses.

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Several colleges are divided over the criteria to determine a student's chances for admission in courses like Economics (honours), B.Com (honours) and Mathematics (honours). While other colleges, like SRCC and Hansraj are giving science and humanities students a benefit of 1-2% marks, other colleges like Hindu College have raised the bar higher for them by 2-3%.

"The college will give science students a benefit of 2%," said PC Jain, Principal, SRCC. Humanities students will get a benefit of 3%.

Hansraj College too will give a similar leverage, but only for its Economics (honours) course. "We will grant a leverage of 1% to science students and 2% to commerce students only for Economics (honours). Humanities students will get no such benefit," said VK Kawatra, Principal, Hansraj College.

Hindu College, however, has decided to raise the cut-off for non-commerce applicants, applying to subject-specific courses like B.Com (honours). "It is not fair for a science or humanities student to seek admission into a course meant for commerce students," said Atul Gupta, head of the department (B.Com.), Hindu College.

However, students remain confused about the situation due to lack of information on the colleges' part. "This is a very vague system as a science student may want to switch streams. We do not know what the colleges have in mind, because some of them are offering us an advantage while others are deducting marks," said Arushi Sanyal, a science student who is planning to change her stream at the undergraduate level.