The first cut-off list for various colleges of Delhi University (DU) is finally out and thus starting the admission process for the session 2016-2017

The online application process began on June 1 and continued till June 22.

For the past few years, the cut-offs for some courses had been touching 100 percent, making admission to desired courses very difficult and tension among students rising every year.

This time though none of the cut-offs have reached the 100 mark, it is still very high.

The highest is Ramjas College 99.25 percent for B.Com honours (last year it was 97.75) and Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College at 99 percent for BSc honours in Electronics (last year it was 96.33).

According to Rajeev Kunwar, secretary of the democratic teachers’ front of DU, though the cut-off hasn’t touched 100 percent this year, there has not been a dip in the cut-offs but has actually increased this year. “In light of teachers’ movement and to avoid excessive admission, the cut-offs have been kept high. This year, teachers’ participation has been less and college principals are aware of this. All colleges are avoiding surplus admission,” he says.

Hindustan Times in its report quoted professor Rudrashish Chakraborty, member, DU academic council, saying that the cut-off is determined by two factors: Number of seats in an institution and the number of applications for those seats in the same institution.

“Suppose there are 30 seats in a course in a college and the same has received around 1,000 applications, how one will determine the cut-off? The college then tries to identify the score of the applicant in the 30th position which becomes the cut-off. It’s not common but theoretically possible that 30 odd students have scored 100% in the combination of subjects required for the course. Then the college has no option but to keep the cut-off at 100, which is rare.”

Kunwar says “Around 50,000 fewer applications have been received by DU this year, even if that is 10 percent less, the cut-offs have been determined accordingly.”

While cut-offs for B.Com honours is usually high, admission to BA honours, BSc honours and BA pass will also be difficult because of relatively high cut-offs. Host of other colleges have announced a cut-off of more than 90 percent for all courses. For instance Lady Sri Ram College has announced its cut-off for Psychology at 98.50 percent, English 98.25 percent.

The university has seen a dip in the number of applications from 2.9 lakh last year to 2.5 lakh this year for 54,000 seats in 60+ colleges of DU.

Check out the first cut-off list