Opinion Making the cut

The system of declaring cutoffs emerged in the 1970s and even today there is no denying the fact that it is one of the more objective,controversy-free instruments of admission. The cut-off mark works as an equilibrating mechanism that helps close the gap between the demand and supply of seats.

Recent debates on cutoffs have revolved around how qualifying marks are going through the roof and a large number of students are unable to get seats. However,the real culprit here is the the limited number of seats available to cater to the demands of a rapidly growing young population. If a large number of students score between,say,95 and 100 per cent,the cutoff will just be doing its job of balancing demand with limited supply. As pointed out by the principal of a leading college,the story would be the same and a large number of people would still get left out if marks had been in the range of,say,65-70 per cent and the cutoffs had been lower.

What gets played out during admissions is a game where the players — that is,the colleges — have to choose cutoffs strategically. However,this decision-making has to be seen along with the preference ordering of the prospective students across various courses and colleges.

For one,in a situation where college A is strictly preferred to college B,A would ideally declare a cut-off higher than that of B. But in reality this may not happen. Even though extensive consultation between colleges is allowed before the cutoffs are finally declared,things might go haywire either on account of some exogenous factor (for example,a prior commitment on admission criteria made by a particular college),or simply because a college may choose not to consult with others. So it may turn out that college A,in the first round of admissions,declares a cutoff of 98 per cent and B declares 98.25 per cent. In this case,all students who qualify will choose college A over college B and the latter will not receive any candidates.

A more serious problem that the university has to contend with has been described as a game of “musical chairs” between colleges,as well as between departments within a college. To illustrate,in the above example,where college A is preferred to B,suppose A initially declares a higher cutoff than B. The latter will get some applicants,but if A is unable to fill up its seats and reduces its cutoff in the next round of admissions,B will witness a mass exit of students to A. Whole classes of students shifting from one college to another has become quite common,especially in popular courses like commerce and economics.

The “musical chairs” in the university can be contained through consultations among colleges. The objective here is to minimise the risk of filling many more seats than sanctioned or not being able to fill enough.

An extremely important issue that the present admission policy does not address is that of quality. With CBSE scores not generally regarded as good indicators of a student’s ability,some DU departments,such as English and journalism — have entrance tests. The Common Aptitude Test for English (CATE) allows even a student with 45 per cent (in the general category) or 40.5 per cent (in the OBC category) to seek admission. An entrance test score or a standardised test score applicable to all courses (similar to the SAT score) must be used to assess the ability of the student beyond her examination-oriented training.

Alternative admission procedures could also be implemented. A centralised process that matches the preferences of the applicants with that of the university,for instance. The university could first arrange applicants in descending order of their CBSE marks,or a weighted average of CBSE marks and a standardised test score. Then,starting top down,it could invite one group of applicants for admission and start filling up seats based on the students’ preferences and seat availability. The procedure would be repeated with the next group and so on until seats get filled. While there might still be withdrawals,the university,using data on the average number of withdrawals from past years,could keep a margin of that many more seats at the start of admissions. This is just an idea,and many may disagree,but the point of this article is to initiate a discussion on viable alternatives.

The need of the hour is to simplify procedures and bring about uniformity in admission criteria. Even though colleges want to retain autonomy,why should students of the same university,studying the same course and taking the same exams,be subject to different admission criteria? DU needs to streamline procedures to attract the best talent to what is still considered the top ranking university in the country.

The author teaches economics at Hindu College,Delhi University
express@expresindia.com