It was a hectic day for the administration of Delhi University on Monday as hundreds of people swarmed admission centres to clear last minute misgivings. As the sale of forms was nearing a close in the afternoon, there were long queues of students waiting to submit their forms. While most students had taken their forms long back and only needed to submit them, there were still others whose last-minute realisation of filling forms dragged them out of their homes. A desperate scramble for college spots was underway as an unprecedented number of students competed to snap up a rapidly diminishing number of vacancies.
There was a huge rush at colleges for ECA and Sports quota forms. Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College had the longest queues as their physical endurance test is scheduled on Tuesday. Meher Sandhu, a student applying under Sports quota, said, “I came to Khalsa a few days back to collect the form and the Sports and ECA counters were relatively free. But today it took me over 45 minutes to submit my form.”
Students from neighbouring districts and villages had also come in on the last day to fill forms for their friends. Kailash Kamwal from a village near Mathura said, “We don’t have any computer access in our village so we didn’t know that the admissions are ending today. We came here by chance and now we are filling the forms for all our friends as well.”
Due to unexpected rush and being the last day, the admission centres also kept their counters opened till late on Monday. “We did not want to deny anyone who was in the queue of a chance to submit the form. Thus, counters were closed when every form was submitted,” informed a university official.
However, there were some others who wished not to pursue a course at the DU but had to fill up the forms under family pressure. One such student could be seen at the Daulat Ram College. Udai Abroi, an applicant filling the OMR form, said he is doing it due to family pressure. “I don’t want admission in DU as I want to specialise in a professional course, which only a private university offers,” he said.