No seats left in some popular Mumbai colleges in 3rd FYJC merit list

Even though the overall cut-offs in city colleges dipped by less than a percentage point across courses, a handful of popular colleges had no seats left to be allotted in the third merit list for first-year junior college (FYJC) courses. Announced on Monday by the office of the deputy director of education (DYDE), NM College in Vile Parle, HR College in Churchgate and RA Podar College in Matunga — all popular colleges for commerce — had no seats left for the third list.

“All our seats were allotted in the first two merit lists and very few withdrawals happened. So no seat was left for the third list. We plan to start the orientation for our new FYJC batch this week, and classes will follow too,” said Parag Ajgaonkar, principal of the institute.

As per information shared by DYDE office, 39,964 seats were allotted to eligible students in the third round.

“Of the 39,964 students allotted seats in the third merit list, 6,916 students have been allotted colleges of their first preference, 7,364 have got seats in the second-preference college and 5,969 students have been placed in colleges of their third preference,” an official statement released by the office of DYDE, Mumbai region, on Monday read.

The statement also highlighted that in the third round, 3,152 students were allotted seats in arts stream, 25,539 in the commerce stream and 11,058 in the science stream.

Most colleges ended up with higher cut-offs in their third merit list as compared to the second list.

“Students get to refill their college preferences after every round. So many with higher marks end up seeking admissions in the following rounds, thereby resulting in higher cut-offs as compared to the previous round,” said Vidyadhar Joshi vice-principal of VG Vaze College, Mulund. While no seats were left for allotment in commerce and science streams in the college, the arts cut-off went up by 2 marks.

Similarly, at St Xavier’s College, the arts cut-off went up by over a percentage point, while the science cut-off dipped by less than a percentage point. In Mithibai College, Vile Parle, cut-offs for all the three streams reduced by less than one percentage point.

A total of 117,883 FYJC aspirants were allotted seats in the first merit list on August 27. However, nearly 50% students of these aspirants had not confirmed admissions. Similarly, 60,037 students were allocated seats in the second merit list, of which only 21,116 (35.17%) of those confirmed admissions. There are 119,000 seats available in junior colleges.

“Not confirming admissions during common admissions is a worry because most colleges will now receive a barrage of individual applications from students aiming for vacant seats as per their preference. We will know the situation in the next couple of days,” said the principal of suburban college.