Mumbai degree colleges merit list: Cut-offs for self-financed courses stay high, drop for traditional programmes

Mumbai: The third merit list for colleges affiliated to Mumbai University was released on Thursday evening. While students seeking admissions to popular self-financed courses in leading colleges got little respite from higher cut-offs, traditional courses saw a further drop.At St Xavier’s College, admissions closed for most courses after the second round. The college put out a third list only for its unaided BA in economics and statistics programme, said principal Karuna Gokarn. “Though science cut-offs dropped, most students whose names appeared in the merit list have secured admissions and all our seats are filled,” she said, adding they plan to have their orientation on June 15 and classes for the first-year batch will start a day later.Mithibai College saw the cut-offs for popular self-financed courses going down only marginally by 0.5%, but the BA cut-off came down by 2 points to 87%, said principal Krutika Desai. She said for FYBSc, the college has filled only 150 seats out of 250 so far and there are not many applications, showing poor demand. The college plans to start classes by June 15.Another principal pointed out that for some reason, students are opting for private universities over their aided programmes. “We are not sure why the BA cut-offs are going down. In some cases, students cancel admissions at our colleges if they secure a seat in a private university. We do not know if it is about more flexibility or diverse options in minor programmes or generally the stability that these universities offer,” said the principal, adding many are willing to pay the higher fees.Anushree Lokur, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College, said though BA cut-offs have gone down further in the third list, seats in popular combinations like psychology were filled in the second round. “Seats are unfilled only in some combinations, where the cut-offs have dropped. But demand for traditional programmes is lower than before,” said the principal.Since Mumbai University had announced a fine for students and colleges for every incorrect pre-enrolment form filled at the college, many are wary about accepting incorrect forms. “We are outrightly rejecting incorrect or incomplete forms as we do not wish to attract a fine. The university also kept the portal shut during the admission rounds and did not allow students to alter their forms. Students are young and are bound to make mistakes; the university, therefore, should have kept the portal open,” said the principal.Some like R A Podar College have added a course in BSc (Finance and AI) now. “We got the permission late; it is a unique programme,” said principal Vinita Pimpale, adding it is yet to be made available on the university portal.