DU debates proposal to do away with admission forms this year

A proposal to change the admission process in Delhi University has kicked off a storm with many in favour and others hell-bent on blocking its passage. The proposal has to go to the Admission Committee for final approval.

If the new proposal is cleared, students in the general and OBC categories will no longer have to stand in queue to fill admission forms and wait for cut-off lists. Individual colleges will come out with cut-off lists and students making the cut will be able to secure admission directly.

Currently, there is a single, common application form for all colleges of Delhi University. Only students who fill this form are eligible for admission.

On Monday, Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh and principals of DU colleges held a meeting where they decided on the option of doing away with the form to simplify the admission procedure. The proposal will be presented before the Admission Committee for final approval.“This time, there will be five cut-off lists. So even students whose results have come late will get a chance to take admission,” said Savithri Singh, Principal of Acharya Narendra Dev College. She said she welcomes the move as it will ease the admission procedure for students.

“In the older system too, admissions were done on the basis of marks. For the last three years, we had been asking DU to do away with admission forms that are time-consuming. In the new system, there is not much change except for the fact that students will no longer have to buy forms and submit them,” Singh said.The only apprehension is about the cut-off marks. Prof Vinay Srivastava, Principal of Hindu College, said that the first cut-off list will be based on past experiences but with the second, third, fourth and fifth cut-offs, there might be a problem.

“It is a remarkable development and I fully support it. The only issue is to determine what should be the last cut-off. If we set it too low, many students will apply. Since we cannot refuse students who come with the required percentage, there might be a tad too many,” he said.

Dr Suresh Kumar Garg, Principal of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, said even earlier the cut-off marks were based on past experiences since the single application form meant that each student applied to every college and course. “We used to get more than one lakh applicants for colleges. Everyone was applying everywhere since there was nothing to lose. This year, we will just have to be a bit more careful,” he said.