Admissions to traditional courses in most colleges sluggish this year

Mumbai: While popular self-financed courses in most colleges did not see a third list on Friday, admissions to traditional Arts, Commerce and Science courses are going slow at most. For Arts, in fact, the top colleges are seeing a third list – a newer trend – with students choosing popular subject combinations for their major and minor over colleges. After the implementation of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, students are expected to choose their major and minor subjects in their first year. With not many takers for science, colleges have enough seats and are giving admissions to interested students on the spot. Plain Commerce also has seen a decline in students’ interests, as there are newer innovative allied courses in commerce on offer in all city colleges. St Xavier’s College had a third list for BA, including for the additional division for psychology, but the cut-offs remained above 90%. However, there was no third list for self-financed courses such as BAF, BCom (Management Studies). Principal Rajendra Shinde said students have taken admission, but prefer to leave if they do not get subjects of their choice.At Ramnarain Ruia College, BA cut-off dropped by one per cent from the second list. But the college had fewer seats left in BA for the third list. Principal Anushree Lokur said students have more choices now in terms of courses. They are also willing to change college if they are not getting their choice of major subjects, she added. An aspirant for BA psychology managed to secure a seat at Sophia’s College in the second list, which was her first choice, but after failing to get a seat in psychology, she settled for another college.The cut-offs for popular courses dropped only marginally at Jai Hind college and remained above 90%. For Arts, the college had a cut-off of 91%. However, it had to put out a notice on the portal mentioning that no seats are available in psychology major, but there are seats available in English, economics and history major. The college’s science cut-off dropped to 41.5%.Cut-offs in science in many colleges, in fact, have seen a drastic drop. Some of them have now stopped releasing lists. “We did not get enough forms for the course. So, we are now allowing students to take admissions on the spot. With the confusion over NEET, there are many students who are coming now for inquiry and may secure admissions,” said a principal. Many colleges have reported slow admissions in BCom, which is the most sought-after under MU and has the highest enrollment. With increasing number of autonomous colleges offering newer, innovative courses, interest in Commerce has seen a drop.