FYJC special list: Cut-offs for arts, science seats across Mumbai see a dip

Cut-offs for the science and arts streams saw a substantial dip in the special merit list for junior college admissions which was declared on Monday evening. Prominent

Cut-offs for the science and arts streams saw a substantial dip in the special merit list for junior college admissions which was declared on Monday evening. Prominent colleges saw a dip of 16 and 11 percentage points for the two streams respectively, as compared to that of the third merit list which came out on December 15.

(Representative image) Prominent colleges saw a dip of 16 and 11 percentage points for the two streams respectively. (HT Photo)

Of the 68,178 students who had applied for seats under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in the special round, 59,322 were allotted colleges on Monday. As per the rules laid down by the state education department, every student who wanted to participate in the round had to give consent through the portal which would ensure that students who have secured admissions elsewhere are not allotted seats again.

Principals said that this might be a key reason for the dip in cut-offs, especially in the science stream. “Many students who had secured admissions in diploma programmes or other courses might not have withdrawn from the admission portal, thus leading to higher cut-offs in the three rounds. With the fresh consent, these names would have dropped leading to a dip in the cut-offs,” said the principal of a south Mumbai college.

Especially in minority colleges, the cut-offs went down across streams, with vacant seats under the minority quota being surrendered for other students. As per the data shared by the education department, after the third admission round, nearly 62,000 seats were vacant in the three quotas, with the highest being from the minority quota – nearly 42,000. Overall, nearly 1.85 lakh seats remained vacant after admissions to the round concluded.

With the state government’s decision to extend the economically weaker section (EWS) quota to students from the Maratha community, such students were allowed to change their quota preference from socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC) to EWS or general category for the special round.