As most popular Delhi University (DU) colleges closed admissions to their top courses, and many to all courses offered, in the second list, several off-campus colleges slashed their cut-off by several percentage points but still struggled to fill seats to their undergraduate programmes.

A member of the University’s admission committee said the admission data after the first cut-off list indicates that candidates prefer colleges over courses. “It has been observed that students take admissions in any course if it offers them an entry to the popular on-campus colleges, especially the ones on the north campus. Colleges including the Hindu College, Miranda House and Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, have over-enrolled students in the first list itself,” the member said.

According to the college- and course-wise data shared on Wednesday, DU’s popular colleges have been successful in enrolling students to even their least popular courses.

For instance, in Miranda House, 42 admissions were made against 34 seats available in BA (Hons) Sanskrit. But in Mata Sundri College, only four students sought admission to the same course, while only one student sought admission for BA(Hons) Sanskrit in Dyal Singh College. In the case of Shyam Lal Anand College, Shahadra, only 48 admissions were made against a total of 1,133 seats across courses.

Officials of the off-campus colleges, however, said their seats would fill up after the third cut-off lists are released.

Pankaj Kumar Chaudhary, the admissions’ convener of Shyam Lal Anand College, said, “Mostly students want to go for on-campus and popular college in the first two cut-off lists. We will have to wait for the successive cut-off lists to get more enrollments.” Last year, the college had filled its seats through special drives.

But the off-campus colleges are doing their bit to attract students early. While most off-campus colleges dropped the cut-off by 1-2 percentage points in the second list, released on Wednesday, some colleges slashed the eligibility score by at least 5 percentage points to attract aspirants.

At Aditi Mahavidyalya, an all-women’s college located in Bawana, only 103 admissions were done against the total 890 seats. College’s admission convener Santosh Kumar said they have dropped the cut-off by around 5 perccentage points in the second list. “College is located in a less-developed area and it is difficult to attract girls from other parts of the city. But students will come after the fourth and fifth cut-off lists,” he said.

At the Institute of Home Economics (W) only 19 students enrolled against the available 493 seats. Similarly, low admissions were seen at Satyawati College (morning) and Keshav Mahavidhyalaya.

Students, however, said that the off-campus colleges had also set high cut-offs in the first list. “Even in the second cut-off list colleges, such as Sri Aurobindo and Keshav Mahavidhyalaya, have dropped the cut-off score by just 1 percentage point. Students who do have 95%-and-above marks cannot enroll in these colleges,” said Sunil Verma, 17, who had scored 95% marks in class 12 and wants to take admission in BCom (Hons), which has a minimum cut-off of 97% across most colleges.

However, Sri Aurobindo College (mor) principal Vipin Aggarwal said the colleges were not in a position to drop the cut-off by more than 2 percentage points. “It is because we do not get data of how many students have applied to our college. Hence, we have to play safe by fixing the cut-offs on par with the on-campus colleges to avoid excessive admissions,” he said.

First Published: Jul 04, 2019 07:31 IST