UG admissions: Over 9,000 seats remain vacant across DU colleges

Speaking to The Indian Express, Haneet Gandhi, Dean of Admissions at DU said the seat vacancies are mainly owing to students not filling their preferences strategically in the initial allocation rounds.

By: Express News Service

New Delhi | August 13, 2025 06:07 IST

DU will release its third allocation list on August 13, followed by the first lists for extracurricular activities, sports, and Children of War (CW) quotas on August 15. August 19 is the final date for closing the UG admission process.

With just a week left for Delhi University (DU) to wrap its undergraduate admissions for the year, more than 9,000 seats are yet to be occupied across its colleges.

“For instance, students with low scores opted for a course in a top college but were allocated a seat in a course or college they did not prefer,” Gandhi explained.

“Some filled their preferences without a clear awareness of the cut-offs. Along with this, cases of rejections due to improper documents have also been taken into account. This has wasted about 5,000 allocations in the previous round. These students have, however, applied again in the mid-entry window for their choice of college.”

She added that off-campus colleges also have vacant seats. Off-campus colleges like Aditi Mahavidyalaya and Bhagini Nivedita see hundreds of vacant seats every year.

The mismatch between available seats and enrolments has grown since DU adopted the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) in 2022. Under CSAS, students must list a hierarchy of subject-and-college preferences before the start of the process. Seats are then allocated taking into account CUET scores of the candidates along with their preferences. Once allocated, students must either accept or forfeit the seat, with little flexibility for reshuffling in later rounds.

Last year, even after the mop-up round of admissions, which focused primarily on filling vacant seats, over 3,000 seats remained unoccupied. The mop-up round held in late September 2024, allowed candidates to apply based on their Class 12 marks for the seats still on offer.

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The university will release its third allocation list on August 13, followed by the first lists for extracurricular activities, sports, and Children of War (CW) quotas on August 15. DU has set August 19 as the final date for closing the UG admission process.

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