Longest admission process spanning over 4 months ends with 8th merit list

The admission ended with the eighth merit list which was announced on Sunday. However, according to sources in the varsity, as many as 2,000 seats, mostly in reserved category, are still lying vacant. 

“Tuesday is the last date for admission to undergraduate courses. There is no plan to continue the admission process,” said J M Khurana, Dean of Student Welfare.

Undergraduate admission started on May 1, 2016, with online registration of candidates. The university issued five cut-off lists and the last one was released on July 20. After that, the committee of the university introduced a new way of inviting admission by asking colleges to release eight merit lists. The merit lists were to be released on the basis of candidates’ data sent by the University to respective colleges. Large number of data and the online process created a lot of confusion. “Shifting to online mode made it difficult as we had to churn out lots of data to release the merit lists,” said a principal of a college. 

Another reason that lengthened the process was the lateral shifting of students. “Actually what happened is that there is a lateral shift of students from one college to another. The moment a new list comes up, aspirants shift to other colleges and some come to our college. Due to this, the number of vacant seats has remained the same,” he added. 

“The process of lateral shifting is not a new phenomenon. It is an old game. Although, it may lengthen the process but we must understand that it is democratic as it gives freedom to students to choose a course or college of their choice,” said Khurana. According to sources in DU, reserved category seats including Kashmiri migrants category are still not occupied. It is notable that some colleges had put 40 per cent for ST students in the last merit list for prestigious courses like B.Com (Hons). “There is no problem if the Kashmiri migrant category seats go vacant as these are additional seats,” Khurana added.  “We are hopeful that seats will get occupied with the last cut-off list for which the admissions end on Tuesday. Colleges have been advised to bring down the cut-off marks to get the seats filled up and to wrap up the admission process,” added Khurana.