Over 9,200 applications this year were from 100 percenters across boards | Representational image/Express file
The persisting issue of too many 100 percenters vying for too few seats has led to new courses making an appearance in the 100% and above 99% cut-off category.
Last year, the highest cut-off for B.Sc. (Computer Science) was 98% at Dyal Singh College, significantly less than the 100% for Political Science, Psychology and Economics Honours programmes at Lady Shri Ram College. This year, three colleges – Hansraj, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, and Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies – have a 100% cut-off for B.Sc. (Computer Science), reports The Indian Express.
“We felt the need to be extremely cautious this year after cases of very high over-admission in some programmes. We also felt the need to be more careful with science programmes, because usage of labs following Covid protocol would be difficult if too many students are admitted. A total of 1,250 students in the general category who have applied to computer science in the university have a ‘best four subjects’ score of 100%. Along with Hansraj College, our college is the most popular for this programme and we have only 24 seats for general category students. Keeping this in mind, we decided to keep it at 100% for the first list,” said Hem Chand Jain, principal of DDU college. Last year, the college had a 96% cut off for the programme.
Several colleges, particularly off-campus colleges, have made big jumps in cut-offs for this programme – in Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, it has seen a jump from 92% to 98.5%; in Mata Sundari College from 92% to 96%; in Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce from 93% to 97.5%. Atma Ram Sanatan Dharm College has set a 99% cut-off after last year’s 96%.
Another science programme where multiple colleges have placed their cut-off over 99% is B.Sc. (Honours) Physics, including 100% in Ramjas College. Hindu, Kirori Mal, Sri Venkateswara, Hansraj, DDU and SGTB Khalsa too have high cut-offs for the course.
Hansraj College has seen cut-offs of 99% above in nine science programmes, including computer science and physics. The jump from last year in several of these has been by more than two percentage points. Among the 99% courses at the college this year, B.Sc. (Honours) Chemistry was at 97% last year; B.Sc. (Honours) Mathematics at 96.75%; B.Sc. (Honours) Zoology at 96.66%; and two B.Sc. Physical Sciences programmes at 96.66%. B.Sc. (Honours) Computer Science had a 97.25% cut-off last year.
Meanwhile, for popular arts and commerce subjects, given that cut-offs were already extremely high at the college last year, the jumps are relatively smaller – from 98.75 to 99.75% in B.A. (Honours) Economics; from 98% to 99% in B.A. (Honours) English; and from 97.5% to 99% in B.A. (Honours) History.
Subjects with the highest cut-offs remain the same, albeit with higher cut-offs than previous years. Fifteen colleges have a cut-off over 99% for B.Com. (Honours) and 10 colleges do for B.A. (Honours) Political Science. B.A. (Honours) Psychology is offered in only 12 colleges, and it has a cut-off of over 96% in all, including over 99% in six.
