At top DU colleges, many Arts courses may not see 2nd list

With admissions against Delhi University’s first cut-off list closing, top colleges have seen a large number of admissions against their Arts programmes, with admissions likely to close for a number of programmes for exceeding their capacity.

On the other hand, these colleges have seen a relatively low number of admissions in the BCom (Honours) programme, which had seen cut-offs crossing 98% in a large number of colleges.

This trend is starkly clear in Kirori Mal College, which has seen oversaturation in its BA (Honours) Political Science and BA (Honours) History programmes. In the former, 290 students have been admitted against 63 seats, while in the latter, 170 students have been admitted against 63 seats.

However, not a single admission has taken place in the BCom (Honours) programme, for which the college had set a cut-off of 98.5% for the unreserved category. It has also seen no admissions in the unreserved and EWS categories in the BA (Honours) Economics programme, for which it had set a cut-off of 98.25%.

In SRCC, too, about 50% of seats in the BCom (Honours) programme are vacant. According to an admission official at the college, of 253 unreserved seats in the programme, 150 are vacant.

Kamala Nehru College is not likely to take out a second cut-off list in the unreserved category in Geography, History and Sociology Honours, while Ramjas College has seen a glut in admissions in BA (Honours) Political Science, BA Programme and BCom Programme. Hindu College, which had set the highest cut-off this time with 99% in BA (Honours) Political Science, has seen 90 students being admitted against 43 seats.

“The number of admissions taking place in humanities courses is an unusual trend. Earlier, Philosophy would never get filled in the first-cut off list. This year, we have seen over-admission. Last year, we struggled to fill seats for English (Honours) even in the second cut-off list, but this year, we have already admitted 25 students against 18 unreserved seats,” said Hindu College principal Dr Anju Srivastava.

Ramjas College principal Dr Manoj Khanna said low number of admissions across top colleges in BCom (Honours) might be because of limited subjects permitted in the ‘best of four’ subjects percentage calculation, as a result of which high-scoring subject combinations are not raising percentage of applicants to the soaring cut-offs. The best four subjects must include English/ Hindi and any three among Maths, Accountancy, Economics and Business Studies/Commerce. Applicants are also required to have passed in Mathematics or Business Mathematics.