DU aspirants prefer real forms over virtual ones

Despite the heat, a large section of DU aspirants chose to come down to the University centres for admission forms, rather than go for online application. The University sold 42,860 real forms as against 7,385 online applications on Wednesday, the first day of sale of undergraduate admission forms. Among the centres selling forms, Faculty of Arts, North Campus, drew the biggest crowd of students. Counters selling admission forms were scheduled to open at 9 am, but eager students started queuing up an hour early. The students resulted in the formation of long queues at the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station and a choked Chhatra Marg, the university’s lifeline.

Initially, Delhi University had set up two counters for the sale of forms, but seeing the crowd at the Faculty of Arts, the number of counters was increased from two to eight. Long serpentine queues were also seen at the Arts Centre. It started at the forms counter and reached the Central Library. 

J M Khurana, dean of Students Welfare, Delhi University said, ‘42,860 offline Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) forms were sold of which 35,208 forms were for the General and OBC category and 7,608 forms were for the SC/ST and physically handicapped category. At the end of the first day 3,724 forms were submitted.’ He added, ‘There was an overwhelming response to the Four- year Undergraduate admission registration process on Wednesday. There was a record sale of over 42,000 OMR forms on day one. Last year, the figure stood at approximately 30,000. Likewise, the online registration has been welcomed by the candidates seeking admission to Delhi University. At 7pm, the number of online form sales had touched 7,385 which is almost three times that of last year'.

Gurpreet Singh Tuteja,  deputy dean Students Welfare said, 'Among the 18 information centers, the Arts Faculty drew the biggest crowd. 6,531 forms were sold here in the General/OBC category. 2,500 forms for the SC/ST and physically handicapped category were sold.  600 completed forms were received. Rajdhani College was on number two  spot and Kirori Mal College was at number three spot.

Students who chose to queue up in the heat rather than opt for online registration said they were more comfortable with offline application. Some students who had come from other states said that since they had travelled all the way to Delhi for admission, they decided to turn up at the campus and personally fill up the forms.

One aspiring student Akhilesh, who was looking for admission in Political Science (Honours) said, 

‘Thousands of students try for online application on the very first day which resulted in glitches in the morning between 9 am to 11 am.’