100 pc : Absurdly high cut off Inviting the perfect 10s

Pandemic or not, some things remain the same and again amongst the ‘some things,’ there are some which have broken the trend and seen a sharp upswing much in contrast to the economy of the land. Shocked, surprised, astounded and to some ‘amusing’ too. Now with all colleges having come out with the first cut off for admission to UG courses in Delhi University, some colleges have literally gone over the roof with the cut offs which were announced on October 10. Judging by the first cut off it is more than clear that there is just no room for ‘good’ students to get admission into one of the more reputed colleges for there is room for only the ‘perfect’ students. Doors opened only to those who have scored the perfect 10 is the line adopted by the reputed and much sought after Lady Shri Ram College in DU when it fixed the cut off at 100 pc in three disciplines, BA Honours in Economics, BA Honours in Political Science and BA Honours in Psychology ! This is not all for DU has the rider that if any student wants to change subjects or stream then there will be a dock of 2 or 2.5 percent. So a student from Science if she wants to take up BA Honours Economics in Lady Shri Ram would have had to score above 100 pc in the Class 12 examinations ! It is not only the perfect 10 score that is mind boggling but also in other colleges where the cut off is ridiculously high. At other colleges such as Hindu College, the first cut off in BA Economics Honours is 99.25 percent while it is 98.5 percent for English Honours ! It is more or less the same in all the other colleges in Delhi University. The comment here is centred around Delhi University for this is one varsity where the cut off for admission to UG courses has always made it to the news. The high cut off may also be seen in the backdrop of the fact that nearly 40 thousand students scored above 95 percent in the Class XII CBSE examinations this year and majority of the students queuing up for DU are students from this Board.
Apart from the CBSE there must be thousands of students who have come from other boards, such as after the ISC examinations conducted by the Council of Indian School Certificate Examination and the numerous State boards. Apart from this, the absurdly high cut off seen this year may also be understood in the backdrop of the fact that for the nearly 67 thousand seats on offer at Delhi University a total of nearly 6 lakh applications have been received. It is not clear whether the total of 67 thousand is inclusive of the  Economically Weaker Section students or not but the difference in the number of seats available and the number of students seeking admission must be clear to all. The Covid pandemic has been cited as one of the major reasons for the steep increase in the number of applications received this year and this may go some way in explaining the sharp rise to nearly 6 lakh applications in 2020 compared to the nearly 3 lakh applications in 2019. Marks and more marks it will be to decide who is admitted and who is left out and this is the same yardstick applied in all other Universities/Boards/Councils and till the time a viable option is worked out this model will continue. The cut off will decrease in the subsequent cut offs for many students would have got admission in professional course of their choice such as Engineering, Management and Medical but the first cut off list has laid down the standard. So students, particularly students who belong to the general category, a 90 pc score would be just a simple pass, a 92 pc score would be just a second class and 95 pc would be first class !