58% is all you need to get admission in a top 10 Nagpur junior colleges

NAGPUR: Junior colleges in Nagpur are probably witnessing one of their leanest admission periods as cut-offs under Common Admission Process (CAP) have slid sharply. On Wednesday, seat allotment list for Round-1 of CAP was released and it revealed some shocking statistics.
An official ‘top 10’ list of junior colleges prepared by the education department, shows that students need just 58% to secure a seat (commerce stream) in the 10th college on that list. Even if one opts for science, the struggle is not that much considering cut-off for the 10th ranking college is only 65%.
There are over 200 colleges under CAP in Nagpur city. If at the 10th college (on that list) admission can be secured at 58%, then one can easily guess as to what the ‘cut-off’ for the last college on that list will be.
And if you wish to be enrolled in the top college of this particular list, then no need to even think about high scores as the cut-off there was just 87% (science).
While some colleges might report a higher cut-off in the 90s, for aided seats where fees are drastically low, the education department says it’s not the right methodology to calculate cut-offs.
A senior education official, who did not wish to be identified, said: “In a single institution there could be seats under various categories like aided, self-financed etc. But you can’t keep on calculating cut-offs for every category, else it’s a never ending process. Cut-off simply means that below this score, you can’t get admission in a specified college,” said the official.
While the education official did not have readily available data on previous years’ cut-offs as per the official formula used by CAP, and not individual colleges, he agreed that this year has to be one of the lowest in recent times.
“I feel that high scoring students from SSC have already taken admission outside city limits,” he said. CAP is mandatory only for colleges located within Nagpur Municipal Corporation jurisdiction.
SSC results were declared on June 17, but the education department did not start the admission process saying it will wait for CBSE to declare theirs. After a wait of over 40 days for SSC board students, the admission process started.
Ravindra Fadnavis, sarkaryawah of Maharashtra Rajya Shikshan Sanstha Mahasangh (MRSSM), said: “State government wasted academic time of our SSC board students for the sake of their CBSE counterparts.”
As per the data released on Wednesday, only 1,700 CBSE students participated in Round-1 of CAP as compared to over 16,000 from state board.
“The state government should have started CAP in June itself and allowed CBSE students to join in later. Just for the sake of a thousand CBSE students you are putting future of 20 times more kids from our own board,” said Fadnavis.
Highest Cut-off in city:
Science: 436
Commerce: 347
Arts: 411
Lowest Cut-offs
Science: 326
Commerce: 292
Arts: 394
(Source: Education department Top-10 List; Marks are out of 500; For general category students)