With more students scoring above 90%, FYJC admissions set to get tougher for aspirants

Though the admissions to first-year junior colleges (FYJCs) get tougher year-after-year, this year, principals said, the aspirants are likely to face a stiffer competition

Though the admissions to first-year junior colleges (FYJCs) get tougher year-after-year, this year, principals said, the aspirants are likely to face a stiffer competition to get into a college of their choice, as many more students across all the boards have scored in the 90-95% range.

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“The competition keeps getting tougher every year, and it won’t be any different this year. The cut-offs may go higher than last year and it is likely that more students will be vying for the same seat, especially in top colleges,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.

Principals feel aspirants opting for quota admissions too, will feel the heat.

“Generally, the rise in overall marks directly affects the cut-offs for general as well as minority quota admissions, and it will be a similar situation this year too. We will know the status once admissions to minority and management quota seats begin,” said Parag Ajgaonkar, principal, NM College, Vile Parle.

While most Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools in the city earlier highlighted that the number of students who scored 95% and above was much higher as compared to 2019, the Maharashtra state board too, saw a surge in the high-scorers.

As per the information shared by the board on Wednesday, 83,262 SSC students from SSC board managed to score 90% and above this year, of which 14,756 are from Mumbai alone.

In 2019, the Mumbai divisional board received around 1.85 lakh applications from students for the general admission round. While nearly 1.68 lakh were from the state board, the second highest number of applicants (7,881) belonged to the ICSE board.

With ICSE students scoring big every year, experts said that the state education department needs to come up with a solution for state board students.

In 2019, the state board scores were abysmal and this had a big impact on the overall admissions. The cut-offs at HR College as well as KC College witnessed a surge from 92% and 88.6% respectively to 92.4% and 90.2% in the commerce stream. In the arts stream, St Xavier’s College closed its first list at 94%, a dip of 0.20% from 2018, while Ramnarain Ruia College and DG Ruparel College, with cut-offs at 92.6% and 86.2% respectively, saw a marginal increase. There was a clear dip in the cut-off marks for the science stream across prominent colleges, with some seeing a dip of nearly 6%.