While colleges’ role in Delhi University admissions has been diminished under the new system adopted this year, they are trying to find ways to help students with registration and selection of their preferences.
The admission process this year is being conducted in a centralised way by the university based on Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores. Whereas earlier colleges would set their own cut-offs for their various programmes based on their analysis of popularity of programmes and the class XII scores of aspirants, this year the university will allot seats based on preferences listed by candidates and their position in the CUET score-based merit list.
In this system, the role of colleges is limited to accepting or denying the admission of an allotted candidate after scrutinising the submitted documents.
However, many colleges have set up online helpdesks on their websites to offer assistance to candidates. Colleges such as Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Ramjas College and Hindu College have uploaded numbers of their admission convenors or helpdesk convenors, and even numbers of teachers from different departments, so that candidates can upload them with their queries.
Delhi University has produced a large quantity of digital content to help students through the registration process. It has uploaded all its public webinars held till date to address students’ queries and it has created online tutorial videos. It has also created several sets of detailed illustrative examples to show how students’ eligibility and merit will be determined for various programmes based on the CUET papers they have attempted. The online admission helpdesks of colleges such as Indraprastha College for Women and Hansraj College have compiled all this material.
However, what the material created by DU does not do is help students with deciding which college and programmes to choose, and how to decide on the order of preferences. Some colleges are trying to think of ways to offer some kind of counselling to students.
The online admission helpdesk of Miranda House also contains the material created by DU and email addresses of college personnel, the college is trying to think of other ways to help students with the preference filling stage.
“Candidates might not be fully aware of all the different colleges they can apply to and how to rank their preferences. One thing we can do is list our last year’s cut-offs for our different programmes, and also list out different colleges in which aspirants can apply for the same programmes with their last year’s cut-offs. It could help them with understanding their options. Cut-offs are information in the public domain and may help candidates in understanding the ‘status’ of the programmes in the different colleges,” said Miranda House principal Bijayalaxmi Nanda.
Members of the admission committee at Ramjas College have also been getting queries from candidates asking for details on the programmes on offer and the faculty in the college. “We will be holding a meeting in the next few days and maybe we can think of ways to help students more,” said the member.
The preference filling Phase II of the admission process will continue till October 10.
