Different cut-off for boys and girls

Parents and students say this practice is unfair and puts girls at a disadvantage

Several pre-university (PU) colleges continue to have different cut-offs based on gender despite a growing demand from parents and students to do away with the practice.

For instance, a private PU college in south Bengaluru has set different cut-offs for boys and girls. In Science stream, the cut-off for girls is 88% and for boys is 85%. For the commerce stream, the cut-off is 82% for girls and 80% for boys.

Parents and students said it was unfair as the cut-off for girls in most colleges is higher than the cut-off for boys, putting them at a disadvantage. Varsha Padmanabha, who is applying to a city-based PU college, said, "In my experience, girls usually perform better than boys. As a result, boys get an unfair advantage over girls if cut-offs are different."

Parents too feel that there has to be common cut-offs so admissions are based on merit and not gender.

Colleges, however, justify the differential cut-offs saying that they are trying to maintain an equal gender ratio and because girls normally perform better in the SSLC examination.

Higher cut-offs for commerce

Meanwhile, this year, with more demand for commerce courses, the cut-offs for the stream are likely to soar and are expected to be more than the cut-offs for science courses. In many colleges, the cut-off for commerce is expected to be above 90%. The trend is being attributed to the declining demand for engineering courses.

Admissions on first come, first served basis

Competition is not limited to between students. Every college is trying to woo more students than its competitors, resulting in many colleges doing away with the system of having cut-offs altogether. Instead of waiting for students who come first in the exams, they are simply allotting seats to anyone who approaches them first for a seat.

K.R. Manjunath, principal of MES PU College, BTM Layout said they had scrapped cut-offs over the past two years and were allotting seats to students on first come, first served basis. He said that colleges were switching to this method as there were several new PU colleges and there is a lot of competition.