Admissions begin in DU, mad rush for popular courses

At the same time, officials of the University also sought to reassure students that much reasonable cut off percentages are expected by the third list and that the high numbers were limited to only a few courses.

At the Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), where the 100 per cent cut-off for non-Commerce students had sparked off much debate, only 15 seats were left unfilled in the B Com (hons) course while 11 were left vacant in the Economics (honours) course on the very first day of admissions.

"Out of 252 seats for the B Com (honours) course, 237 were filled today and out of 62 seats in the Economic (honours) course, 51 were filled," said SRCC Principal Dr P C Jain. He said the cut-offs had been quite unreasonable and were not hiked or inflated at all.

At the Miranda House, large queues of students were seen and the colege authorities almost ran out of prospectuses. More than 400 of the over 900 total seats were filled on the first day, with some courses booked over their capacity in the general categories.

College officials said Economics, Political Science and Mathematics courses were filled above capacity, while few seats remained in the Chemistry and Physics courses in the general category. The OBC quota, however, was still over three fourths vacant.

A day after the cut offs were announced, prompting reactions from the HRD Minister himself, officials at the University sought to assuage concerns among students.
Dean Students Welfare J M Khurana said the high-cut off percentages were limited to only a couple of colleges and courses and it has not seen much rise in the other courses.

He said looking at the 100 per cent cut off as denying admission to Science students in Commerce stream was not the right perspective. "Top level Science students already get admitted to institutions like the IITs. The media is unnecessarily creating hype over this issue by portraying it as a deprivation for Science students," he said.
Khurana, however, said the required percentages are expected to be "more reasonable" by the time the third cut-off lists are out and a large number of colleges in the University will still be having seats by that time.

Apart from the frenzy at a few colleges, the rush was not as intense at all the colleges of the University, especially the peripheral ones, though a good number of students turned out, officials said. This year, students have been given four days to complete the admission process after the announcement of the cut off lists, as against three days till last year.

The University this year did away with the pre-admission forms, announcing the cut-offs directly. "The students need not be apprehensive and need not panic as there are still more lists to come and there are enough colleges in the University," said Khurana.