Students choose SoBo colleges, seats lie vacant in western zone

MUMBAI: One out of every four seats in first-year junior colleges (FYJC) in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai remained vacant in the special round 2 of the ongoing online

MUMBAI: One out of every four seats in first-year junior colleges (FYJC) in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai remained vacant in the special round 2 of the ongoing online admission process.

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The seats are for first-time applicants, students who want to change their seats and ATKT (allowed to keep terms) students. ATKT students are those who cleared the exam in more than one attempt. The merit list for the round, in which around 25,713 students are competing, will be announced on Tuesday at 5pm.

Around 1,62,378 students from these regions were admitted in the six online admission rounds. With a total intake capacity of 2,18,132 seats, only 55,754 seats are vacant in these regions for the special round.

A majority of the vacant seats — nearly 23,400 of them — are in colleges in the western zone. Also, with 379 institutes, the zone has the maximum number of colleges. The number of vacant seats, however, is surprising considering that the western zone boasts of having admitted the largest number of students (63,476) and previous trends indicated that students prefer colleges in the western zone to those in South Mumbai.

“Since a large number of colleges are located in the western zone, most of the admissions are recorded there,” said BB Chavan, deputy director of education, Mumbai region. “The zone has an intake capacity of over 86,000 seats.”

Chavan said the large number of vacant seats in the western zone could be an indication that students are cancelling their admissions in western zone colleges and moving to the ones in South Mumbai during the special rounds. “In the first few rounds, most students were allotted seats in western zone. But during the special rounds, we saw that students were giving up the seats for their preferred colleges, which may be located in South Mumbai,” Chavan said.

This could also be the reason behind fewer vacancies in South Mumbai colleges as compared to the situation in the last few years, he added. Nearly 34, 236 students were admitted in the zone, while the intake capacity is 44,331. “Most of the colleges in South Mumbai are popular among students because they are considered to be prestigious,” said a principal from a college in Churchgate.

In comparison to South Mumbai and the western zone, Navi Mumbai has the lowest number of admissions and vacancies as it has only 121 colleges. The area has 3,967 seats available after giving admission to 13,893 students.