With one more day still to go, UG registrations at Delhi University already cross 435,000

New Delhi: The Delhi University has received over 435,000 applications for around 70,000 seats in various undergraduate programmes till Monday, the highest so far, university officials said. The numbers are expected to go even higher with registrations continuing till Tuesday evening.

Last year, the university received 351,974 paid applications in the three-month registration window that was 100,000 more than 2019 (258,388). To be sure, the registration portal was open for around 10 weeks in 2020, as compared to four weeks this year, in order to help students amid problems arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first cut-off is expected to come out on October 1 and admissions to the undergraduate courses will begin on October 4, university officials said.

Though there are over 435,000 registrations on the admissions portal so far, only around 250,000 among them are paid applications due to various factors, including duplicity and multiple registrations per candidate. University officials said the number of paid forms is expected to increase by Tuesday night as more candidates are expected to complete the process by paying the registration fee.

This year, registrations for undergraduate courses began on August 2, and online registrations for the postgraduate, MPhil, and PhD courses took place between July 26 and August 21. The university received over 183,815 applications for 20,000 PG seats and 30,019 registrations for MPhil/PhD slots.

A senior university official who asked not to be named said, “Students can pay the registration fee till 11.59pm Tuesday. Only the paid applications will be considered. We did not extend the registration date as we have to submit data for the undergraduate entrance test as well. This week, the university officials are likely to hold a meeting with the admissions committee to discuss the suggestions put forward by the principals on cut-offs.”

The official added that the university would have continued with the merit-based admissions had it not been for the scheduled entrance tests. “Along with engineering and medical entrance exams, we also have the undergraduate DU entrance test (DUET) scheduled for the last week of September. The admission process is dependent on these tests because students tend to change their academic choices based on their performance in the tests. This is why we chose October 1 as the date for tentative cut-off,” the official added.

Since DU does not follow a first-come-first-serve system for UG admissions, colleges are supposed to offer admission to all applicants who meet the announced cut-off criteria. With around 220,000 students scoring 90% and above marks in CBSE Class 12 results this year and 70,000 of them scoring around 95% or more, the undergraduate cutoffs are likely to soar this year as well. Every year, DU receives around 80% of applications from students graduating from CBSE affiliated schools.

Bijayalaxmi Nanda, principal of Miranda House college, said, “We have seen preliminary data from this year’s results and analysed the trends from last year as well. Colleges generally look at preferred subjects, cancellation between cut-offs, and other data points before deciding on the numbers. Cut-offs in most subjects including popular ones like some combinations of BA Programme, Political Science, Economics will increase by one to two percentage points and many courses will be in the range of 98-99%.”

In DU, admissions to all undergraduate courses, except 15, are conducted on the basis of merit and scores in the previous qualifying examination. Admission to postgraduate, MPhil-PhD courses, and 15 undergraduate courses that include journalism, finance, and music, are held through DUET that is conducted by the National Testing Agency. This year, the exams will be conducted between September 26 and October 1.

Though registrations will be closed on Tuesday, students appearing for their compartment exam or improvement exams will be allowed to upload their documents such as mark sheets and certificates after their results are declared later.

In the absence of final board exams due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Class 12 CBSE results were prepared on the basis of Class 10, 11, and 12 internal scores of students in a ratio of 30:30:40. Students who were not satisfied with their results declared in July were given the option of appearing for physical exams later. The board is currently conducting examinations for such students along with those who need to appear for their compartment papers till September 16.