A day before the Delhi University declares its first list for admission to undergraduate courses,colleges predicted a rise in cut-offs this year. The university has done away with the section on college options in the common pre-admission form this year. University officials said this step would let students seek admission to more colleges. It has been seen in the past that students are not able to take admission to a college despite meeting the cut-off because he/she forgot to mark that college in the OMR form. To make things easier for students,we decide to remove the college options section this year. Students can now take admission in any college,as long as they meet the cut-offs, a senior university official said. However,according to some colleges,the absence of college section in the application forms might be one of the many reasons behind higher cut-offs this year. Manasvini Yogi,public information officer,Indraprastha College for Women,said: The cut-offs are set to increase this time. Earlier,we used to decide the cut-offs by looking at the Class XII marks. Now,every student who has applied to Delhi University is an applicant to the college too. University officials said colleges have been advised to be cautious in deciding cut-offs at least in the first list. Cut-offs in the first list are always higher. They go down with subsequent lists. We have also advised colleges to be cautious in the first list, a university official said. Two years ago,when DU had decided to do away with the system of pre-admission forms,the cut-off at Shri Ram College of Commerce was 100 per cent. SRCC officials,however,remained tight-lipped about a possible repeat of that situation. Stating that students performance drives cut-offs,SRCC principal P C Jain said: It takes time to analyse the data of thousands of applicants. We are holding a meeting tomorrow. A final picture will emerge only after that. Du has sent data on over 2.5 lakh applicants to various colleges to analyse before announcing the cut-off percentages. We have received a CD containing applicants data from the university. It has been sent to all departments in the college, Hindu College principal Pradyumn Kumar said. While official figures will only be announced by June 27,Kumar said students can expect an average rise of one per cent in cut-offs. For most courses,the cut-offs will rise by 0.5 to 1 per cent. In courses such as Economics,Commerce,English,Physics and Chemistry,the cut-offs might be above 95 per cent in the first list. In other courses such as History,Political Science,Zoology and others,they will hover around 93 to 95 per cent, he said. Regarding the basis for deciding the cut-offs,Kumar said,Colleges also look at the last three years trend. The first cut-offs are always high because colleges are cautious as lowering the cut-offs would result in over-admission. Most DU colleges face the problem of over-admission. Since students who meet the cut-off cannot be refused admission,several colleges end up admitting students over their sanctioned strength.
