The admission season has ended at Delhi University (DU), but surprisingly many colleges are finding it difficult to fill some seats vacant for merit-based undergraduate programmes.
No first come, first served
The problem is that colleges can’t reduce the cut-off as such a move can lead to over-admission in a particular course. According to DU rules, there is no first come, first served policy and colleges have to admit all students who make the cut-off.
Guidelines awaited
A professor in-charge of B.A. (Hons.) Economics at a sought-after North Campus college said that they have a few seats vacant in the general and reserved categories.
However, the professor added, if the cut-off is reduced by even 0.25%, several students will be eligible for admission whom the college won’t be able to accommodate.
As of Friday evening, DU had not come up with guidelines on how colleges should fill these seats.
Ashutosh Bharadwaj, Officer on Special Duty (Admissions), Delhi University, said the university would soon inform colleges about the policy.
At the beginning of the admission process, DU had said that it would release five cut-off lists, with subsequent lists being announced only if needed. Later, the university came out with seven lists, besides showing vacancies in many sought-after courses like B.A. (Hons.) Economics, B.A. (Programme) and B.Com (Hons.)
Last year, the colleges had tackled this issue by announcing a merit list with names of students eligible for admission.
Special drive
Also, DU had announced a special admission drive for applicants under the reserved categories.
This was to allow candidates who registered with the university but were not admitted to any college, irrespective of the category, to make corrections in their forms and switch from the unreserved category to the general category if they had relevant certificates. Corrections were allowed only between July 31 and August 2, after which the university came out with an eighth cut-off list.
Missing the fine print
However, several reserved category students complained that though they found themselves eligible for admission as per the eight cut-off list at colleges of their choice, they weren’t allowed to switch admission.
Some students, in fact, cancelled their admission at one college, hoping they would be eligible for admission at another after the eight list.
They are now waiting for DU to come out with a policy regarding the vacant seats.