Less variety? Most Delhi University entrants from CBSE

NEW DELHI: With Common University Entrance Test (CUET) being adopted as the mode of admission at Delhi University this year, the first allocation of seats shows that Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students constituted the largest chunk with over 50,000 applicants.
Interestingly, unlike last year, when students from Kerala Board of Higher Secondary Education (KBHSE) constituted the second largest chunk, this year so far just 342 students have taken admission. Last year, at Hindu College alone, 615 students from Kerala board had taken admission.

The admission data accessed by TOI shows out of 59,019 admissions that took place under the first allocation round, 50,941 students were from CBSE. The interim report prepared by a committee constituted by the university showed that in 2021, there were 37,767 applicants from CBSE and 1,890 from KBHSE.
As the admission is still ongoing, the numbers may slightly vary with DU having a total of 70,000 seats.
This year, around 2020 students from Council for Indian School Certificate Examination have been admitted. Last year, there were 1,606 applicants.
Unlike 2021, there were 1,348 Bihar board students this year after the first allocation, followed by Uttar Pradesh board with 1,057. With 848 students admitted to DU in the first round, Rajasthan board featured in the top five. There were 454 students from Haryana board.
Last year, CBSE, KBHSE, Haryana (1,824), ISC (1,606) and Rajasthan (1,329) boards constituted more than 90% of the applicants who took admission at the undergraduate level.
Citing this disproportionate representation from the different boards, the university-constituted committee suggested holding admission through CUET, instead of the cut-off marks system.
Compared with last year, there were fewer applicants from various state boards this year. This year, there were 5,695 applicants from UP board as against 55,000 in 2021. There were 5,305 applicants from Bihar board in 2022 and 16,000 in 2021. Last year, there were 37,473 applications from Haryana as against 1,895 this year. While from Kerala board, there were 1,847 applications last year as against 6,380 in 2022.
Colleges are yet to analyse the data individually, but the top institutions mostly have students from CBSE.
Tanvir Aeijaz, an admissions convener at Ramjas College, said, “Though we were not actively marking the boards while going through the certificates, we largely noticed that students were from CBSE. There were definitely fewer students from the state boards, which was a matter of discussion among the members. However, we will have to wait for the final data to analyse things correctly.”