With an expected rise in cutoffs this year, several students are now taking to sports quota as their last resort. As the process for admission under this quota began, there was a maddening rush at several colleges on Tuesday and they even had to keep their shutters open till late in the night to accommodate everyone.
Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College was giving out certificates till 11 pm after the physical fitness test got over at 5 pm. A parent present at the college, Gurpreet Sandhu, said, “After my son was done with the physical fitness test we were waiting to get the certificate. There was a lot of rush, which I think, the college was not prepared for. In fact there were proper tents put up for us to sit in, but because the process went on till after 10 pm, even the tents were removed while we waited.”
However, the principal of Khalsa College, Jaswinder Singh clarified that the college gave the parents a choice to either collect the certificate on Wednesday morning or wait. But parents chose to wait. “Collating data and writing certificates takes time and since there were so many parents we went on working till very late. We could not shut the doors or wait till Wednesday morning because we had to start trials,” said Singh.
Even the St Stephen’s College had to extend their deadline because of the large crowd. A student at the college informed that the document verification went on till midnight. “There were a lot of students and each document needed at least 20 minutes for verification. We were all waiting in a queue from 5 pm and our turn came till 7 pm. Once the deadline was extended, the rush increased and the last verification ended around midnight,” added the student.
The sports trials will continue till the end of the week. However, St Stephen’s will also hold interviews for sports quota students. All colleges will take out their lists by the first week of July.