New Delhi, June 17 (PTI): St. Stephen's College, which has announced a staggering 99 per cent cut-off for admissions this year, today sought to put the onus on boards, saying they should work on their marking indicators to make scores more "realistic".
"We find ourselves in such a situation every year. Due to the style of marking by the CBSE and other boards, we have to hike our cut-offs. We believe that the boards should work on their marking indicators so that the scores are more realistic," college spokesperson Karen Gabriel said.
The college announced its first cut-off list last evening for admissions to the 2015-16 academic session, the highest requirement being for English honours at 99 per cent.
"We have got 6,000 applications for English honours, which has just 30 seats. So, the high cut-offs are not by choice," Gabriel said.
Explaining the criteria to decide on cut-offs, she said: "We decide our cut-offs after evaluating three parameters - board marks, student-seat ratio and number of applications received."
"Unfortunately, we are living in a society where students are evaluated by their marks. The state as well as the boards should work on the marking system as well as educational reforms to ensure students do not fall prey to such anomalies in the set-up. We as a college cannot do much about it," she added.
St. Stephen's has received a record 32,100 applications for 400 seats, the highest in the college's history.
The cut-off for a seat in the Stephen's English honours class works out to 99 per cent for commerce, 97.75 per cent for science and 97.5 per cent for humanities, the highest for any of the subjects on offer at the college.
For economics, the cut-off is 98.5 per cent for commerce, 97.5 per cent for science and 97 per cent for humanities.
For history, BA pass, mathematics, Sanskrit and philosophy, the cut-offs are 98, 96.5, 97.25, 75 and 96.75 per cent, respectively.
Stephen's offers honours courses in economics, English, history, philosophy, Sanskrit, mathematics and chemistry along with BA and BSc pass courses.
The college earlier used to enrol students on the basis of personal interviews and cut-offs announced after the Class XII exams. From this year, a 30-minute aptitude test has been introduced. The candidates meeting the cut-off criteria will now be called for the aptitude test and interviews starting June 22.
Stephen's, a minority institution, follows a schedule and procedure for admission different from other Delhi University colleges. While the varsity had decided to eliminate stream-wise cut-offs and extra riders by colleges this year, Stephen's has stuck to the previous pattern.
There are separate cut-offs for Christian, Dalit, non-Christian tribal and Christian tribal students and those with disabilities.
Students of Urdu also have separate cut-off marks.
