In Delhi University, switch from cut-off to CUET helps Bihar state board, hurts Kerala

With the adoption of CUET and a centralised allocation admission system, DU this year moved away from a decades-long system of admissions based on Class 12 marks. The push came after last year when a university panel, constituted to examine admission related issues, had flagged unequal admission opportunities to students of different boards.

Admission data from the first two rounds of seat allocations — in which 62,825 admissions have taken place for roughly 70,000 seats in DU — shows that the bulk of admissions (85.67%) are still students under the two major national boards — CBSE (51,797 admissions) and CISCE (2,026 admissions). This is almost the same as last year’s figure, in which these two boards constituted 85.95% of the final 71,748 admissions.

The share in admissions of both these boards is also largely proportionate to the number

Subscriber Only Stories

View All

ExplainSpeaking: How to evaluate a Union Budget

Mahesh Vyas writes: Why the job shortage is for real

Delhi confidential: Focus On Projects

Gandhi to Tagore: At old St Stephen’s campus, a glimpse into remnants of ...

Apply New Year promo code SD25

of candidates who had registered — CBSE candidates constituted 81.34% of the applicants while CISCE candidates made up 3.87% of the applicants.

However, differences from last year begin to emerge when one looks at students from state boards. Last year, candidates from the Kerala board made up 2.33% of the total admissions that took place in DU. This year, their share in admissions has come down to 0.62%. Similarly, last year candidates from the Haryana board made up 3.44% of admissions. This figure has drastically come down to 0.77%.

It’s a different story for candidates from the Bihar state board. Last year, they made up 0.77% of the admissions, while this year that figure is 2.3%.

Since the total number of applications this year (1.75 lakh) is considerably lower than last year (2.74 lakh), the acceptance rate — or the number of students who applied from a particular board and got admission — is generally higher, with one notable exception. Last year, the Kerala board had the highest acceptance rate among all major boards at 41.98%. This year, the figure has dropped to 21.17%.

Among the five boards with the highest number of admissions last year, the CBSE had the lowest acceptance rate at 26.42%. This year, it has the highest rate so far at 36.36%.