New Delhi, Jul 1 (PTI): Admission season at Delhi University finally took off on Tuesday after a week’s delay caused by the standoff between the university and the University Grants Commission over the four-year undergraduate programme.
Students queued up in large numbers outside colleges for the re-introduced three-year format despite the stiff cutoff marks announced by premium and rank outsider alike. Over 2.7 lakh students applied this year for admission to 54,000 seats in 64 colleges.
Three rank outsider colleges set entry bar for their B.Sc (honours) in Computer Science at 100 per cent for those who had arts in Class XII. They are Acharya Narendra Dev College, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee College.
Most colleges have announced cut-offs above 90 per cent.
The 100 per cent cut-off for B.Tech (Computer Science) at Ram Lal Anand College last year and for B.Com (Hons) at prestigious Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in 2011 had sparked a major outcry.
With admissions a week behind schedule, students seemed eager to get themselves enrolled to the colleges of their choice and quite relieved that the row between UGC and the varsity over FYUP had ended.
“I am glad that the chaos over four-year undergraduate programme has ended. It was unnecessarily being stretched. I am more than happy that FYUP has been rolled back as a lot of my seniors had been dissatisfied by the curriculum under the programme,” said Aishani Wadhva, a DU aspirant.
There were some who said that even though they would not have mind studying under the four-year structure, they were glad that the controversy had ended paving way for the admissions to begin.
“I would have preferred to study the four-year programme. The multi-disciplinary foundation courses would have been extremely helpful while the applied courses would have provided us with job skills. But am I glad that at least the uncertainty is over,” said Disha Sethi, an SRCC aspirant.
Another student, Chaitanya Vaishnav said, “I made it to the first cut off list to SRCC. Be it three years or four...I wanted to pursue my undergraduate studies at SRCC. I believe the delay caused due to the FYUP controversy, will not impact the students because the session will anyway begin as scheduled,” says Chaitanya Vaishnav.
It is expected that a sudden switch from FYUP to the previous three-year format will lead to some hiccups and delays in the admission process.
DU aspirant Arman Kukreti, however, gave positive feedback on the management saying he did not face much hassle.
“I guess the chaos is over now since the FYUP has been rolled back,” he said.
According to fresh admission guidelines issued by DU, students who have registered for the current academic year will be eligible for admission to all courses wherever they meet the criteria.
Giving another chance to those students who had missed the deadline to fill application forms, the varsity has allowed them to take admission by filling the university registration form along with the college admission form.
In reaction to the sky-high cut-offs, author Chetan Bhagat tweeted this morning saying, “A 100% cut-off doesn't tell you the college is good. It tells you something is really, really wrong with our education system.”
