Delhi University's first cutoffs soar to 100% in three colleges

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NEW DELHI: As expected, cutoffs for admission into Delhi University's undergraduate courses went sky high as colleges released the first list late on Monday. For BSc computer science, the bar was as high as 100% in at least three colleges — Acharya Narendra Dev (95-100), Atma Ram Sanatan Dharm (98-100) and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (97-100). 

Though 'popular' colleges didn't raised the bar too high — there wasn't much scope for it either — cutoffs in other colleges increased by as much as 20 percentage points for some courses as compared to 2012-13, when the same programmes were last on offer. 

The increase is attributed to uncertainty over the number of applicants due the sudden rollback of the four-year-undergraduate programme.

Click here for the full first cutoff list (PDF file) 

Barring courses such as Sanskrit, Hindi or Anthropology, cutoffs for a majority of popular courses were above 93% aggregate in best of four. And there is a 100 percent aggregate this year as well, recorded at Acharya Narendra Dev College for BSc computer science. 

The cutoffs released by the colleges are also riddled with additional criteria and aspirants need to carefully analyse them, as simply making the cutoff will not make them eligible for admission. 

Off-campus colleges played it safe to the extent that not many may see much of action during the first cutoff admissions. For example, Zakir Husain Delhi College increased its cutoff from 70 in 2012 to 90 this year for English honours while Ram Lal Anand (evening) upped the bar for its BA programme by 20 percentage points at 85%. 

"We are aware that these are pretty high cutoffs. But colleges have to be careful because there has been no registration for programme courses and there is reduction in the seats for honours courses (as compared to FYUP). Once students come for registration and we have more data, we can work on more realistic cutoffs. We have the liberty as there will be seven more lists to fall back on," said principal of a south campus college. 

Colleges like Gargi, Deshbandhu, Acharya Narendra Dev, SGND Khalsa and host of others increased their cutoffs by over 10 percentage points. In fact, of the 57 colleges (excluding St Stephen's, Jesus and Mary, Institute of Home Economics and Lady Irwin College) 45 recorded a jump of 10 percentage points in cutoffs as compared to 2012. 

Some of the highest cutoffs are recorded at Acharya Narendra Dev, Hindu, Hans Raj, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College, Indraprastha College and Ramjas. Hindu placed its BCom (honours) cutoff even higher than SRCC by offering admissions at a range of 97.25 to 99.75 (best of four aggregate). SRCC is offering BCom (honours) at a range of 97.5 to 99.25. At Hans Raj, the highest cutoff is for BSc computer science at 98.33- 99.33 (best of four). Economics cutoff is equally high, with Hindu keeping the bar at 97.5-99.
Another course for which for the first time admissions will be based on cutoffs instead of an entrance test is journalism and mass communication. The highest cutoff for journalism was recorded at Delhi College of Arts and Commerce at 98.5-99.75. At Ram Lal Anand, it was 98 for its Hindi journalism course. At LSR, the cutoff for journalism is 96, while at Maharaja Agrasen college it is 95. 

The number of seats in honours courses now returns to the 2012 level though the total number of seats remains at 54,000. For those applicants who wrote the entrance test for the now-scrapped Bachelor in Management Studies, that test too stands. For them the guideline says, "The admission to BBS and BA Hons (business economics) will be held on the basis of the criteria already announced for BMS admission 2014-15. However, the best four subjects will be calculated as per the admission guideline for these courses prevalent in the year 2012-13. The seat distribution will be restored to the status 2012-13. Centralized counseling would take place as per the schedule to be announced."
Some colleges have decided to increase the cutoffs significantly, especially in science courses, possibly because of the decline in the number of honours seats. Over-admission is particularly difficult to handle for science subjects as due to infrastructure requirements such as laboratories. For example, Acharya Narendra Dev has increased its physics cutoff from 86 to 94, botany 74 to 85 and zoology 80 to 90. Gargi has also raised its physics cutoff significantly, from 90.33 last year to 95 this year.