The month of June has kept not only the aspirants but also officials of the Delhi University on their toes. This rush is not going to settle any time soon as the varsity’s registration process for the admission to undergraduate courses for 2016-17 academic session has been extended till June 22. One of the highly rated admission processes across the country, the possibility of DU admissions to conclude can be called only by July-end. Across its 64 colleges, there are around 54,000 seats and the university has already received over three lakh applications including 2,31,596 paid applications.
The university had tried to increase the seats by introducing more courses but the University Grants Commission (UGC) did not approve them, according to the DU officials.
“Some 20 colleges applied for around 40 new courses which could have brought the possibilities of adding more seats to the undergraduate courses. The university had held long discussion and cleared these courses in both Academic Council and Executive Council but the UGC did not approve them,” DU Admission Committee member, Nachiketa Singh told The Pioneer.
He said the UGC instead asked the colleges, who had written appealed to it for approval of the courses, to start them as “self funded” courses, which the university refused.
While university has 77 colleges in total, the 13 are technical and science instititutes which are not part of the undergraduate admission process.
“We are concerned about 60 odd colleges, regular, which offer only 54,000 seats.”
This is the first time the university made its admission process completely online and instead of the unending 12 or more cut-off lists, which would go on for a period of month and a half earlier, it (university) decided to release only five cut-off lists after which the colleges are free to admit candidates to the vacant seats directly.
“This decision was taken so that the time wasted in the process of getting separate data from colleges and then tallying it for issuing the cut off lists should be saved. As the university has strictly asked the colleges to upload all the information online, the admissions after the fifth cut off list would be transparent,”Singh who teaches at the Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College, said.
The first cut-off list would be released on June 30. “After every cut-off list is released, the students would get two days to get to the colleges and enroll for the courses. The third day would be a break and then next list would be followed until the last (fifth) cut-off list. After this, colleges will inform the university about the vacancy of seats and the university will issue a new schedule for the registration and the process would close on August 16,” Singh explained.
The university has not decided yet whether the registration for the vacant seats would be centralised or directly to colleges. It is also pertinent to mention that the colleges would not be allowed to do any admission after August 16, even if there are any vacant seats remaining.
“The students with less percentage should keep an eye on the cut-offs and vacancy so that they grab a seat in any colleges at the earliest,” added Singh.
There are no mid-term admissions to Delhi University colleges. However, students can migrate from colleges within the university after second semester.
The freshers would join the colleges for orientation and classes from July 20.
For admission to Sports and Extra Curricular Activities, the candidates must keep up with the university website for the announcement of dates and venue.
“The dates and venue for ECA and Sports category admission would be announced any time this week. Candidates must watch out for this,”said a DU official.
The university, after the High Court order has made the admission process through ECA and Sports category also centralised. This year, the varsity would mark some colleges, with infrastructure of particular sports and activity as the cluster colleges where trials and fitness tests would be conducted.
The minority colleges including St. Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary Colleges are yet to agree for the centralised trial and fitness tests for the admission. The university has recently planned to write to the colleges insisting them to abide by the court ruling.
While the two Christian minority colleges joined the centralised registration process by having a parallel application process, this year, the three Sikh minority colleges were given a free hand to have their own merit lists like the above two colleges.
Advice to Aspirants
While the competition is high in the Delhi University colleges, the experts suggest that students should not feel disheartened and explore other options.
“Students should not feel disheartened, because even if students have scored above 90 percent in many cases they cannot get the college of their choice. It is difficult to accommodate three lakh students in 54,000 seats. Candidates must not lose good courses, thus we advice them to choose course over college because if they go just for the college brand, it will not help them in the future. They must understand, ultimately it is the university’s degree and not the college so why to ruin an opportunity of studying a good course just because it is not in the top most colleges,”one of officials of the university said.
Delhi University has two other platforms for students with less percentages. One is the School of Open learning (SOl) and another is Non-Collegiate Women’s Education Board (NCWEB). Many students join this parallel admission options of the university.
“We are concerned about those students who score below 80 per cent. At SOl, we have more than two lakh students. Whoever qualifies the eligibility criteria at SOl would be enrolled as there is no upper limit. Same is in the NCWEB, any woman candidate meeting the eligibility criteria, could enroll,” said an official of the Dean Student’s Welfare.
It offers two undergraduate courses — BA Programme and Bcom. NCWEB, which admits only female students from Delhi, has a total of 6,084 seats.
The first cut off list will be released on July 12 and admissions under this will continue for the next three days after which a second cut-off will be released on July 15. A total of five cut-off lists will be released. There are 13 DU colleges that function as teaching centres for NCWEB, including Hansraj College and Jesus and Mary College. The classes are conducted only on Sundays.
No Confusion
A lot of queries have left the DU officials baffled. “It is almost the end of the registration process and recently an aspirant with her parents reached the university to ask about the entrance examination dates for undergraduate courses. I was shocked. I told them there are no entrance exams in the courses you have opted for,” the official apprised.
He said, “All the students should have gone carefully...There is no entrance test for DU undergraduate courses. Do not get confused. Entrance tests is only for BA (Honours) Multimedia and Mass Communication. Other entrances are for technical courses including BMS, B.EI. ED, BBA and FIA which would be followed with the merit list and interview. The final round would be counselling and accordingly the selected candidates would be given one of the five colleges which offer these courses.”
The experts also suggest that all the aspirants must carefully read the prospectus, bulletin of information of the university and college. “Since the days to secure a seat after the cut-off is just two days, candidates must keep every required document handy while approaching the college. Most importantly, they should be very careful while filling up the online registration form because if there are errors, it would not be processed further which will give no further opportunity to the candidates,” he further added.
look beyond DU
Delhi has three Central universities including Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, and two state-run varsities including Ambedkar University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. There are also several private universities in the National Capital Region which include the pricey varsities like OP Jindal Global University, Ashoka University, Shiv Nadar University, Sharda University and Amity University.
“My mind was conditioned to study hard and meet the cut- offs of the DU colleges but once I got my marks and I made some visits to the university. I felt, I need more than this and there was no need for the maddening competition that is instilled in us. I approached my parents to visit one of the private university and liked one of the courses. Their approach is holistic and exposure is also very good for students to work. I am happy,”said Daniya Ameen (name changed), one of the students.
There are also several Government universities in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Students from Delhi or even the students from neighbouring States can explore these options.
“To look beyond brand name is a trend which will take time to change but the range of options have opened to window of hope. May in down the line, we would see that change for good,”said a DU professor.