Mumbai: Arts harder to get into this year

While the cut-offs for the arts stream increased by 4% to 5% in the offline lists (in-house and minority quota) of four of the most coveted colleges on Thursday, commerce and science cut-offs dropped by between 1% and 3% or remained the same as compared to last year, indicating that the general merit list cut-offs could also fall.

While the cut-offs for the arts stream increased by 4% to 5% in the offline lists (in-house and minority quota) of four of the most coveted colleges on Thursday, commerce and science cut-offs dropped by between 1% and 3% or remained the same as compared to last year, indicating that the general merit list cut-offs could also fall.

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Colleges have to release their lists for in-house (schools affiliated with junior college), minority and management seats before online admissions begin on June 22.

At Jai Hind College, Churchgate, the cut-off for science-bifocal stream fell from 85% last year to 84% this year. The cut-off for science (general) stream was the same as last year at 75% and commerce cut-offs also remained the same at 70%.

But the cut-off for arts increased by 5% from 60% last year to 65% this year. “This year, we received more applications for arts under the Sindhi quota. I think that students are starting to realise that arts throws open a plethora of career options,” said Jyoti Thakur, vice principal of the college.

She added that the cut-offs are likely to fall in the second minority merit list.

SIES College, Sion, which has a quota for South Indian language speakers, was the only college on Thursday where the cut-off for science stream Information Technology (IT) rose from 90.54% last year to 92.36% this year.

The cut-off for science (general) fell from 87.5% last year to 84%, while the cut-off for science-bifocal (electronics) plunged from 90.36% last year to 86.18% this year, and science (computer science) cut-offs also fell from 90.54% last year to 88% this year.

The arts cut-off in the college rose by 0.25%.

Similarly, at St Andrew’s College, Bandra, the cut-off for arts rose by 3.9%.

The science cut-off dipped from 82.73% last year to 82% this year, but the science (computer science) cut-off fell from 88.36% last year to 87.45% this year.

“Many high scorers have chosen arts, hence the cut-off has risen. It could drop in the subsequent lists as some students might shift to other colleges,” said principal Marie Fernandes.

This year, the college is also offering IT for commerce and arts for the first time. The cut-off is 82.73% for commerce (IT) and 78.80% for arts (IT).

HR College of Commerce, Churchgate closed its second minority merit list for Sindhi language speakers at 74.3%.

Their first list released on June 11, had closed at 80%.