With an increase in the number of students scoring above 90 percent as well as 95 percent marks in the recently declared Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12th results, the competition for admission into Delhi’s top colleges as well in other top-ranking colleges across India is likely to increase, thus pushing up the cut-off marks.
According to the board officials, a total of 12,737 candidates scored 95 percent or above in the exams, whereas 72,599 candidates scored 90 percent and above. The CBSE results are taken into consideration while setting the cut-off marks for Delhi University colleges. In 2017, 10,091 students from across the country scored 95 percent or more and 63,247 got over 90 percent.
“The Delhi University cutoffs are decided by colleges based on the number of applications received and also on the scores of these applicants. If the number of students with 95 percent and above has increased then colleges will keep a higher cutoff,”Hansraj College principal Rama Sharma also said that they are expecting a spike in the first-cut off, but added that they can only say for sure after analysing the data.
The report further said that the competition is likely to be even tougher in the humanities stream because the two toppers of Class 12th are from this stream. Meghna Srivastava, a student of Step By Step School in Noida, topped the exam getting 99.8 percent.The second position was bagged by another girl, Anoushka Chandra, also a humanities stream student from a school in Ghaziabad. She got 498 marks out of 500.
A Delhi University official said that cutoffs are kept high to avoid over admission. He told Hindustan Times, “We send colleges the number of applicants at every 0.25 percentage points difference so that they have a rough idea of how many students can turn up for admission. The cutoffs are kept at the higher end so that there is no over admission,” the official said.The university has already begun the online registration for admission to undergraduate courses. The first cut-off for merit-based courses is expected to be out by 19 June, 2018. The university may make changes to the schedule later.
That a large number of students scored high marks in 2018 CBSE results as compared to 2017, besides, DU, admission to graduate programmes in several other top universities such as University of Mumbai, Banaras Hindu University, University of Calcutta, Jamia Millia Islamia, Ambedkar University, Panjab University as well as other top colleges like St Xavier’s College (Autonomous) in Mumbai, which usually see a very high cut-off marks, could also get tougher.
