Study trends in 2013

According to estimates in a report released by ASSOCHAM, nearly eight lakh Indian students spent over Rs 10,000 crore on overseas education in 2012-13. The report, titled ‘Funds flows out of India for Higher Education 2013’, reveals that the country needs quality institutes on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) for students wanting to pursue careers in management, accounting, engineering and chartered accountancy. Such an approach would not only restrict the outgo foreign exchange but also spread of global standards within the country increasing employability of the students in the industry and research institutions.

DS Rawat, secretary general, ASSOCHAM, called for deregulation of higher education and reversing the trend of brain drain by opening up a series of quality institutions with public private partnership, while commenting on the findings of the report.

Making a comparative analysis of the expenditure incurred by Indian students studying in India and those studying abroad, the report states that while an IIT student incurs an expenditure of USD 150 per month as fees, those opting to go abroad incur anywhere between USD 200-600, per month, in countries such as US, Canada, Australia and UK.

The report additionally adds that deregulation of the higher education sector will also make India a leading destination for students hailing from other developing countries. While USA tops the list with 82% enrollment in the higher education sector, countries with low enrollment in this space constitute Pakistan (5%), India (12%), China (20%) and Brazil (24%).

The report also finds that about 95% of all entrance exam takers in the IITs and IIMs do not make it due to capacity constraints in these institutes and end up taking admissions abroad. While currently there are about 900 million jobs in India, 90% of these are skill-based, requiring vocational training, 9% are knowledge based and only 1% require both knowledge and skills.

Institutes can deny admission on disciplinary grounds: HC

An educational institute is "well within" its right to deny admission to a successful candidate if his presence adversely affects discipline, the Delhi high court has ruled.

"The right of an educational institution to either admit or deny admission is beyond dispute and no student has got a right to compel an institution that he should be admitted," a bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice R S Endlaw noted while dismissing a plea by a former Jamia Millia Islamia student against denial of admission.

The bench also said a selected student is entitled to admission, but "equally, it is the solemn responsibility on the part of the university to consider the past conduct of the student even if such student was ranked for the admission.

"If admission of the appellant is not conducive for good administration of the university and if it affects the discipline among other students, it would be well within its right to refuse admission," it said, pointing out that "responsibility" of an institute is to not only impart education but also to "inculcate" discipline.

Hamidur Rehman had filed a plea in HC that he was "arbitrarily" denied admission in M A (Persian) by JMI for academic session 2012-14, because he wanted to restore democracy in the form of student elections. Rehman said he ranked 21 in the test, held for admission for total 30 seats, but the university admitted only 20 students to deny him admission.

But the HC dismissed the appeal giving credence to reports from "heads of each of the departments, which stated that the appellant was offensive and aggressive against the university".

While an educational institution can't deny admission to such of those students who would be entitled to be admitted on the basis of ranking, the court said, but added that "equally, we are also not oblivious of the importance of discipline among students. Universities today have striven to ensure principled conduct for admission of students and the transition to higher education. The code of conduct is amongst the necessary elements which are known today for admission of any student in schools or universities".

Mumbai students forced to pick centres in Haryana, Assam

Chaos reigned on the first day of the registration process for the first ever National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for post-graduate medical aspirants. After the website meant for online registrations crashed several times on Thursday, city students were forced to pick centres in Uttarakhand, Ranchi and Haryana because centres in Mumbai and Maharashtra had filled up fast.

Around 8,000 medical students from the state usually take the PG entrance test. The state test was scrapped and NEET introduced this year. The website mentioned that centres would be allotted on a first-come-first-serve basis. As there were only seven centres in the state and four in Mumbai, students rushed to book their seats online. Students reached the bank from where they were supposed to collect vouchers as early as 4.30 am and waited till 9.30 am for the bank to open.

Since the online test is between November 23 and December 6, students were hoping to get a slot towards the last few days. A student said, "The server crashed at least three or four times while I tried to register. We continued trying to register for three to four hours, but with no luck. It is a three-stage form filling process and the server crashed erratically at any point. When I finally managed to complete the process, city and Pune centres were full."

Another student said, "By 10 pm, most places across the country were filling up fast. With no centres in Gujarat and Rajasthan, I was forced to choose Uttarakhand."

Some students who logged in early on October 5 easily managed to get seats in Mumbai centres. A student said, "Some of my friends who filled the form around 3 am, did get a seat allocation in Mumbai. We have been told that the process was much easier on Friday and students managed to fill up the forms in 15 minutes. Now as per the rule, slots and centres once chosen cannot be rescheduled or cancelled. Why then should the authorities claim that the system worked on first-come-first-serve basis?"

Most of the students who filled it up on Thursday to be on the safe side have ended up with centres in Ranchi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Assam, etc.

Officials from Prometric (who are conducting the online exam for National Board of Examination) remained unavailable for comment. According to a release issued by the Prometric, around 38,000 candidates registered for the test within 24 hours.

Prometric India MD Soumitra Roy said, "Scheduling instructions have been shared by NBE before the start of the registration window, and candidates were reminded at the time of online scheduling. Prometric continues to increase available seating for current test dates to address heavy registration demand. As a result of demand in individual areas, not all sessions may be available and candidates should select another session if their first choice is not available."

Medical PG entrance aspirants sweat it out for forms

Applicants to post graduate courses in medicine and surgery had a tough time on Thursday as they queued up for procuring application forms for the entrance examinations. There was chaos and confusion as the mode of conduct of examination had been changed from this year with the National Board of Examinations entrusted with the task to conduct the tests. The entrance examinations for various MD and MS courses as well as post graduate diplomas are scheduled to be conducted between November-end and December. The applications forms for the diploma courses began to be distributed from Wednesday while forms for MD and MS entrance tests started to be issued from Thursday.

Hundreds of MBBS graduates and their parents waited for hours in front of the Axis Bank branch near the Lakshmi Mills junction in the city, which was the only centre from where students could get tokens on payment of fees. They had to upload a secret number then on the internet. Students complained that the bank did not have necessary facilities to cater to such a large crowd.

Dr N Sakthivel, who is taking entrance tests for both PG degree and diploma courses, said they had to wait for almost six hours to get tokens. "We were waiting from around 6am on both days," he said. Though the applications will be available for the next two weeks, students had come in large number on the first day itself as the number of centres in south India was limited, he said.

Dr H V Manjari, who waited till 12pm to get the application forms, complained that the entire process was disorganised. "There is only one centre in the city to issues applications. There are only few centres in south India which have been filled up in the early hours. Now the centres vacant are in Assam, Kashmir and other distant places," she said. Till the last year, the All India institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) used to conduct the entrance examinations. "They used to conduct it in a commendable manner," said Dr Vyshali Mohan another aspirant.

The number of centres for the examinations must be increased from the present 30. Around 2 lakh students appear for the examinations and there ought to be more centres, students point out.

However, bank officials blamed server problems for the chaos. "Extra counters were arranged, but the server got jammed. Similar problems were reported from other parts of the country also," a bank official said.

Tough time for med aspirants after admission round limit

The worries of students and their parents in securinga seat in a private medical college has taken a different form this year.

A Supreme Court order says the Association for Private Unaided Medical and Dental Colleges (APUMDC) can conduct only two admission rounds and not three like before. Students who did not get seats in the two rounds are now seeking admission individually to the state's nine MBBS and 19 BDS private colleges.

Divya Sagar (name changed), a Mithibai College student, is planning to drop a year and try for the course next year. However, she is also worried about the difficulty level of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, to be introduced from 2013. "One college claimed they have no vacant seats, but the association's list shows it has nearly 30 vacant seats. We will have to approach individual colleges in a week's time. I approached colleges in Khed, Jalgaon and Navi Mumbai but could not check with others as they had closed admissions."

Ajaz Rawoot, a parent, said, "After the two rounds, colleges had to issue advertisements or display vacancies on their website. Not many have followed the Pravesh Niyantran Samiti (PNS) rules. Colleges were supposed to give us time till September 21 for application and counselling but several closed admissions on September 18." Another student said she would have got a seat if there would have been a third round. She said colleges are claiming there are no seats and asking for donations.

APUMDC chairman Kamal Kishore Kadam said, "After the two rounds, the association had sent the procedures to be followed to all the members and a letter asking them to follow the SC verdict. If colleges fail to do it, it will amount to contempt. Students can approach the PNS or even the court."

"After the centralized process, colleges have to put up a merit list and get it approved by PNS. If students' ASSO-CET scores are higher than the cut-offs listed, they can approach the authorities," added Kadam.

Some students have approached Forum For Fairness in Education for help.

Those who could not secure a seat in two rounds have been seeking admission to institutes individually.

Manual admissions in Odisha colleges to continue

The Orissa high court on Thursday quashed a notification issued by the higher education department to go for compulsory e-admissions in junior and degree colleges in this May.

HC also directed state to continue with both e-admission and manual admissions in colleges as was the past practice.

"The state (government) should find ways and means to work both the systems together," the division bench of chief justice V Gopala Gowda and justice S K Mishra said.

The high court did not find fault with the idea of e-admission but was against the compulsory implementation of the system as the facilities of computer and internet accessibility have not made adequate penetration in state.

"E-admission will not cause any real hardship to the students residing in cities having proper computer and internet facilities, it will pose difficulties to those students who are living in interior parts of the state where computer and internet facilities are not available," said the judgment that was reserved earlier.

The state higher education department had earlier ordered that all the 600-odd degree and autonomous colleges of the state shall go for e-admission as is now being done in junior colleges of the state. The government had also taken the decision that apart from e-admission, the students shall also fill up their forms for the examinations through online.

This decision of the government had however been challenged in the HC when a member of 'Save Education Committee' Biswabasu Dash filed the PIL seeking judiciary intervention. The HC in an interim order had earlier directed the state to go for both e-admission and manual admission as was the practice earlier.

SRCC, Hindu reopen Eco seats in 4th list

DU aspirants who had given up on getting admission in Economics (honours) in top colleges were in for a pleasant surprise on Thursday. Shri Ram College of Commerce reopened admission for BA (H) economics in the fourth cutoff list announced by Delhi University on Thursday night.

Two other campus colleges — Hindu College and Miranda House — too reopened admissions in this sought-after course. While SRCC and Miranda House reduced the economics cutoff by 0.25 percentage points each, Hindu decreased it by 0.5 percentage point. Other colleges which are going to admit students in the fourth list in this course include Hans Raj, Ramjas, Sri Venkateswara, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce and College of Vocational Studies.

While admissions for Economics (H) are on in 10 colleges , including six campus colleges , BCom (H) is open in 12, including Hans Raj, IP College, Ramjas and Sri Venkateswara.

The icing on the cake of the fourth cutoff list is the BA programme which is open for admissions in general category across 24 colleges with dips in cutoffs of up to 5 percentage points.

SRCC principal P C Jain said the college has 62 seats in Economics (H). "By the end of the third list, admissions and withdrawal the college has been left with 65 students of which around a dozen are from science background. By past experience these students leave for professional courses like engineering and medicine, which is why we had to reopen in the fourth list."

Withdrawals have been one of the major reasons for BCom (H) remaining open in colleges like Hans Raj and reopening in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College. The highest decrease of 2 percentage points has been recorded at Zakir Husain (evening) with its cutoff ranging from 83% to 88%. The highest cutoff now for BCom (honours) in the fourth list is at Hans Raj with 96% to 98%, a decrease of 0.25 percentage point.

Two courses which are open in a significant number of colleges are BCom and BA programme . BCom is open in 21 colleges , including Kamla Nehru, Dayal Singh, Sri Venkateswara, Ramjas and Maitreyi. In fact Maitreyi along with Zakir Husain (evening) recorded the highest dip in cutoff for this course with a decrease of 3.5%.

Nearly half the colleges offering BA programme continued admission in the fourth list, including colleges like Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Sri Venkateswara, Zakir Husain (evening), Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and SGTB Khalsa. The highest cutoff for BA programme has been recorded at SGTB Khalsa with 82% to 87% followed by Sri Venkateswara with 80% to 91%. Zakir Husain (evening) has the lowest as well as the largest range with a cutoff of 45% to 65%.

New selection norms may change colour and code of IIT campuses

IIT campuses may have more girls from the coming academic year, as the IIT council has decided to select the candidates only from the top 20 percentile in the boards. According to the new selection norms, the candidates will not just have to clear the JEE mains and the advanced exams, they should also be from the top slice of each board.

Since girls constitute a majority of the board toppers, IIT faculty members expect more of them to enter the portals of the premier technical institution. They also believe the new students would mingle better as the new mix would come also from outside the regimented coaching schools which till now have been sending a majority of students who are made to study and do little else.

"We see that a lot of the toppers in the board exams are girls. Right now the composition of girls on our campus is 14%. With this move, we expect the percentage to go up at least to 25%," said R Nagarajan, professor of chemical engineering, IIT Madras. In board exams throughout the country, girls generally have been outperforming the boys. In Tamil Nadu this year, the topper of 12th exams was a girl. The pass percentage of girls in the state stood at around 89%, higher than the 82% pass percentage for boys.

The JEE exam has been usually associated with solving the problem in varied and quicker ways, using ideas gained from multiple topics. The Class 12 board exams, in contrast, have a much more structured approach to answering questions. The inclusion of board marks as a criterion therefore may enable students with different skill sets to clear the exam than the ones currently seen on IIT campuses.

"This will ensure that the students are more sincere and that we will get students with better quality. We expect an attitudinal change among students, because they would have been going to school and taking the Class 12 exams seriously," said professor Sarit Kumar Das of mechanical department, IIT Madras. Though the decision is not yet out, most faculty members agree on the idea of including subjective questions in the exam. This is what they feel will be an effective filtering strategy which will make all the current changes meaningful. "This will mean that more students will be able to analyse a problem, rather than just eliminate the wrong answers, which is what they have been doing when students go to coaching centres to crack the IIT-JEE," professor Das added.

The new emphasis on Class 12 marks is also supposed to make students and classes take notice of other subjects. Of the two other subjects taken into consideration, English is compulsory and the students are free to choose subjects like physical education or computer science to ease the burden, as it is not difficult to score high marks in these subjects. With emphasis on the total score, experts expect students to also undergo coaching for English.

Good average results makes DU's first cutoff list a cut-throat competition

Colleges of Delhi University played safe as they announced an inflated cutoff list late night on Monday. The first of the five cutoff lists to be announced by Delhi University for admission to its various undergraduate courses across colleges witnessed a new high in sought-after courses like BCom (honours), BA (honours) in economics, English and history and BSc (honours) in physics and chemistry.

With hardly a few percentage left for a perfect 100% cutoff, many popular colleges like Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College and Sri Venkateswara exercised restrain, while others went all out hiking the cutoffs upto 11% in courses like BA (honours) in history. And for science students who decided to join a regular degree course instead of any professional course might have to rethink as Monday's cutoffs have witnessed increase up to 10%.

Though SRCC stayed away from a 100% cutoff for its BCom (honours) course, it registered 96.5% for commerce aspirants and 98.5% for others. LSR's BCom cutoff remained unchanged at 97% this year. Even Sri Venkateswara College has maintained its 97% to 98% as the cutoff range for BCom (h) -- higher than SRCC -- while registering comparatively marginal increase in the rest of the courses. Despite just one admission in the first list last year, Kirori Mal College continued to be extra cautious by posting 96.75% as the cutoff for BCom (honours). DU sources said the cutoffs in BCom (honours) and BCom programme is expected to drop by as much a 5% in the second list in outside the campus colleges.

Some of the courses witnessing the big jump this year are BA (honours), BA (honours) English, BSc (honours) mathematics and BSc (honours) physics (h), among others.

In sciences the cutoffs for BSc (honours) in physics and chemistry at SGTB Khalsa College remained the same as last - 92% and 90% respectively. However, the college has hiked the cutoff for BA programme by 8%, English (h) and history (h) by 7% each.

Ramjas has increased the cutoff for BA (honours) history by 11%, which means for a humanities candidate admission in the first list opens at 91% or more. Even in BSc (honours) chemistry Ramjas has hiked it by 10.5%. Gargi College and Maitreyi College too are not far behind Ramjas, increasing their BA (honours) history cutoff by a whopping 10%.

College authorities say that though they have come up with a an 'unrealistic' cutoffs and will drop in the subsequent list by upto 5%, they resorted to high cutoffs to avoid admissions beyond their capacity.

First cutoff admissions begins on Tuesday, June 26 and will continue till June 28, 2012. The second cutoff will be declared on June 28, 2012 and students will be able to access it at midnight at DU's official website.

Languages of Delhi University

The race for Delhi University undergraduate admissions has started with a huge number of applications. Though most students want to join popular courses like BCom, BSc, economics, English and psychology, there are other options that students can explore as well. At a time when the world is getting smaller and diversity is becoming an important component of the 21st century, employment opportunities in this area are increasing too. In fact, with an increasing demand for various languages in a global world, there are many takers for honours courses in languages.

The university, apart from English and Hindi, offers full-time UG programmes in a number of languages, which include German, French, Spanish, Italian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Punjabi.

The department of Germanic and Romance studies, DU, offers a Bachelor's programme in European languages, while individual colleges offer BA(H) in Sanskrit, Punjabi, Persian and Arabic.

According to Kusum Agarwal, head, department of Germanic and Romance studies, several students apply to BA (H) courses in German, French, Italian and Spanish, every year. Over the years, there has been an increase in the number of takers for German and French, with growing applicants for Spanish and Italian as well. The department also offers part-time courses in Portuguese and Romanian.

"These languages have a reputation and in today's global world, there is a demand for these in the market. With international trade, the hotel industry, tourism, and new media, a Bachelor's degree in any of the languages is a relevant academic and future career option," she says.

Students opting for the programme get to study contemporary global culture, the interface of literature, art and the new media. Also, they are exposed to the cultural encounter between India and Europe, postcolonial writing in Europe and the erstwhile colonial world, translation (in particular literary translation), etc. Besides, students have to study a set of concurrent papers like English, history, etc. Further, she explains, "The usefulness of understanding a language in terms of reading, writing and speaking, varies for each student. For example, a management student who also opts for a course in a language has an edge over other management students. This is because when he or she applies to study in a country and is familiar with the language, it is easier to adapt and avail of the different scholarships."

Students have many contemporary career options in the areas of translation, writing, teaching, etc, adds Agarwal.

Admission to the BA (H) programme in all the four European languages is through an entrance test. The test involves a student's ability to understand logic, grapple with ideas, essay writing, general knowledge and general awareness of world affairs. Of late, there has been growing enthusiasm among students to study Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. However, students enrolling in BA (H) Sanskrit from this session onwards will be introduced to a revised curriculum with a number of new papers added to the course.

Students opting for Sanskrit will now have mathematics, aesthetics, philosophy of language and nomenclature as the new papers in their syllabus under the semester mode.

"Against general conception, Sanskrit is a job-oriented language. It continues to be widely used as a successful language in computers. There is a demand for professionals knowing the language in the West. This is due to the popularity of yoga and ancient Indian medicine, prescribed in scriptures like Charaka Samhita, which are now finding relevance in the foreign world. Over the past few years, many MNCs have offered good profiles and packages to Sanskrit graduates during campus placements," says Pankaj Mishra, faculty, department of Sanskrit, St Stephen's College. However, BA (H) courses in Persian and Arabic are offered only in Zakir Husain College.

According to M Aslam Parvaiz, principal, Zakir Husain College, both the languages have a good number of takers. However, the response in Arabic is much more than in Persian, since there are about 53 Arab-speaking countries in the world, while Persian is only limited to Iran. "We receive about 300-400 applications in all for the languages every year. The course content includes study of literature, grammar, contemporary issues, poetry, drama, etc. Many students want to study Arabic so that they can have direct access to original scriptures, which were written in Arabic," says Parvaiz. A number of avenues have opened up as a result of increasing trade with the Gulf countries. Students can opt for higher studies or work as interpreters, teachers in Gulf countries, as news readers, with the All India radio, etc.

Rush for sale, submission of forms in DU

With just three days left for the closing of the application process of undergraduate admissions of Delhi University, rush for sale and submission of forms is back.

But many students from far off places were unaware about the return of the pre-admission registration process which discontinued last year, resulting in large number of students from outside flocking the campus for the admission forms at the last minute.

According to the office of the dean of students' welfare, in the past two days large number of students queued up for forms. "I realized that unlike last year we need to fill up pre-admission registration forms last week and rushed to Delhi. I was assuming that we can come to Delhi around the time the first cutoff is declared and directly go the colleges for admission as per cutoff," said Pankaj Hazarika, an aspirant from Guwahati.

The rush for submission is gradually peaking with a total of offline forms submission touching 70,000 on Thursday. Total number of students who submitted their forms online is 26,000 by Thursday.

Maharashtra SSC 90% plus club shrinks, gives ICSE, CBSE admission edge

Maharashtra's SSC pass rate rose by 4% to 75%, and Mumbai's went up by a marginal 0.7% to reach 80.7%, but hidden behind these small successes is a slowdown. The number of students getting 90% and higher dropped by 41.5% in the state from 42,731 last year to 24,994 in 2012.

In Mumbai, the drop is by 48.6%, from 14,523 students last year to 7,459. Fewer students got 80% and higher too. Among those who cracked the exam, the largest chunk—45%—have scores of 35-59%. With most ICSE and CBSE students holding better scorecards, the upcoming admission season looks rocky for SSC students. Sports marks, best-5 gloss fades this year

For at least three years now, since 2009, it seemed like the academic world was riding a wave. With each passing year, the results were a bigger splash. The population of high scorers climbed as students milked every scheme visible on the horizon—whether it was the best-5 policy or the generous giveaway of up to 4% to sports stars. It seemed like the levees had crashed as a flood of 90-percenters came. This year, the count has dropped.

Like last year, 21,171 students applied for the additional marks in sports this year but it seems like the magic has faded off the additional marks granted and the best-5 policy. School education minister Rajendra Darda said the board would look into the factors behind the drop in high scorers. But most teachers reasoned that it was because of the changed format of science and maths papers, which included questions under a fresh section that required 'high order thinking skills'.

Sanskriti Merchant, from Fort Convent High School, scored 98% after calculating the best five scores. Merchant said, "This year, the science paper was totally different from the ones that we practised for, those of the previous years. Some of the questions were application based, where we had to really think. Also, problems were not from the textbook, like they usually are. Many must have found it tougher."

Sarjerao Jadhav, state board chairman, said the overall success rate had gone up in the state because the timetable for the exams was given well in advance and the exam was spread over a month, thus giving students enough time to study without stress.

Schools that managed to get a 100% result have increased. Over 2,500 schools in Maharashtra got 100% pass results, while 97 schools had the dubious distinction of not seeing a single student clear the board.

Meanwhile, the Konkan division, a new one culled out of the Mumbai and Kolhapur divisions, did best with a 90.8% pass percentage. Mumbai's pass percentage secured it fourth place among divisions, a drop from last year's second rank. On a more predictable count, girls outperformed boys.

Students go for printed Delhi University forms over virtual option

On the first day of Delhi University's undergraduate admission for 2012-13, students seemed to have preferred the printed centralized forms over the online option introduced this year.

A large number of students gathered at the 22 venues across the city, braving the heat on Monday, and bought 30,250 forms, with Arts Faculty at North Campus selling as many as 4,100 forms. DU witnessed 18,000 online registrations as well.

Long queues were seen at centres like Arts Faculty and Miranda House in North Campus, ARSD and deputy dean, students' welfare office, in South Campus; Gargi College and several post offices from 8 in the morning, two hours before the sale started. Gargi College, Ashok Vihar and New Delhi GPO ran out of forms and had to fetch more copies later. Delhi GPO fell short of the prospectus and asked aspirants to wait for it, leading to a huge crowd gathering inside.

While the colleges and other DU venues sold 15,500 forms, the 12 post offices sold 14,750 forms. "There is a greater rush than before," said Dinesh C Varshney, deputy dean, students' welfare, South Campus.

At Gargi College, aspirants started queuing outside from early morning and all forms were sold within an hour. "We had got around 1,000 forms in the first lot, but that got over within an hour of the counters opening at 10am. We got a second lot by 12.30pm and the distribution continued till 1.30pm and we could distribute around 500 more forms," said vice-principal Shashi Tyagi.

Over 700 forms were sold in the first two hours at ARDS while over 1,000 forms were sold at South Campus. Another 420-odd forms for the SC/ST category were also sold at the campus. A large number of outstation aspirants were seen queuing at North Campus.

Aspirants at South Campus was happy with the counselling facility available there. "Most of the students are enquiring about the best college and the best course available. A number of queries for English and commerce have been seen today," said Brij Lal, supervising officer, admissions, ARSD College.

Cut-offs to go up

With the number of students scoring high in class XII CBSE this year, in almost all the streams, it is likely that the cut-offs will go up. It became a topic of national debate last year, when the cut-off for BCom went up to 100% at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC).

However, PC Jain, principal, SRCC, assures that the cut-offs will not be as high this year. "The cut-offs for BCom (Honours ) have been increasing in the last few years. This year we will make sure the cut-off does not reach as high as 100%. Also, for economics, we will ensure the percentage is realistic. Yet, cut-offs are likely to remain high as the overall class XII scores are rather good this year too."

Since a good number of students have scored well in subjects like psychology, economics, business studies, physics, and even in humanities, colleges across the university believe the first cut-off list released will be high though the percentages will come down with the second list.

According to JM Khurana, dean, students' welfare, with students performing well in CBSE again this year, the cutoffs are bound to be higher, but nothing can be said before the registration begins . Also, since many students these days go for professional courses, aspirants must not panic and wait for the cut-offs to be released. At Hans Raj College, the cut-offs are likely to be highest in computer science, economics, electronics, physics and the biological sciences. "The cut-offs are not going to drop in any case in the popular colleges. Subjects like computer science, electronics and the sciences will see a high percentage. We will have to be cautious while preparing the first cut-off list," says VK Kawatra, principal, Hans Raj College.

Colleges including Hindu and Lady Shri Ram (LSR) maintain that the first cut-off list will be high as they will be playing safe. However, Pratibha Jolly, principal, Miranda House, believes it is too early to say how the cut-off lists will turn out. "Only once we have the pre-admission forms data available with us, the picture about the cut-offs will be clear," she says.

Registration

June 4, Monday

The forms will be available at 12 head post offices and eight colleges - Miranda House in north campus, Atma Ram Sanatam Dharam College near Dhaula Kuan, PGDAV College and Gargi College in south Delhi, Bhagini Nivedita College near Najafgarh, Rajdhani College at Raja Garden, Swami Shradhanand College in Alipur and Shyam Lal College in east Delhi.

Online

Students wanting to apply online will have to log on to the university website - www.du.ac.in. After that they will be given a unique password, using which the centralised online form can be accessed. The online form will be a copy of the over-the-counter OMR form