Huge rush for PU admission applications

A day after the SSLC results were announced, long queues of applicants for the pre-university course were witnessed outside several colleges across the city on Tuesday.

Colleges authorities said the Commerce stream continued to be students’ favour this time, too. Hundreds of people stood outside MES College in Malleswaram for hours to collect admission forms. Principal L Ramu said that for the first time ever, the college had received as many as 4,760 applications on the first day. Of these, 1,800 applications were for Commerce. “The demand for Statistics is more compared with Economics. The last year’s trend continues. The demand for Commerce is going up by the year,” he said. This time the cut-off percentage is expected to be higher, he said.

Ramu attributed this to increased job opportunities in the field. “There are better job opportunities in the field now and it is also easy to get a job compared with those who have studied Science. A majority of students who take up Commerce in our college chose to do a CA later,” he said.

MES Kishor Kendra PU College principal Sunita R said the college had sold 2, 282 applications. The maximum demand is for Science (PCMB) followed by Commerce, she said. “We have seen an increased demand for Commerce. We will continue to receive applications till May 21. Usually, on the first and second day, the number of people coming to collect applications is high. It comes down gradually,” she added. Jain PU College too sold about 4,000 applications on Tuesday, the college authorities said.

Exorbitant amount
Even as the Department of PU Education has said that only Rs 21 could be charged for an application form, parents said they had to pay exorbitant amounts in the name of brochures and prospectus. Mulahalli Suri, president, Parents Association, said parents were forced to shell out anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 2000 for each application form.