‘More high-scorers choosing arts’

Merit lists for minority, in-house and management quota seats at two prominent city colleges – St Xavier’s College, Fort and Sathaye College, Vile Parle – were released on Friday evening.

Merit lists for minority, in-house and management quota seats at two prominent city colleges – St Xavier’s College, Fort and Sathaye College, Vile Parle – were released on Friday evening. The cut-offs fell by up to 4% for minority quota in the science stream, while they increased by up to 2% for the in-house quota. Cut-offs for the arts stream increased by 3%.

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Admission for these categories is conducted offline by colleges themselves.

While the science cut-off for Christian minority students at St Xavier’s dipped from 84.18% last year to 81.4%, the arts cut-off increased from 77.4% last year to 79% this year. The cut-off for arts is high this year across all the colleges that have announced their minority lists until now.

“This year, the percentage of students scoring above 90% has increased. Even high scorers are attracted to the arts stream nowadays, so that could be one of the reasons for the rise in the cut-off,’’ said Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of St Xavier’s College.

The number of state board candidates from the city scoring 90% and above in the Class 10 exams jumped from 7,459 last year to 9,500 this year. Despite this, cut-offs for science and commerce in the minority quota have fallen. St Andrew’s College, Bandra saw a drop in science cut-offs by 1.5% points from last year.

“More students are taking up arts these days because professional courses such as mass media and management studies have become attractive,’’ said Kavita Rege, Sathaye’s principal. “Our cut-offs have increased as students from both schools performed really well this year.”