Special merit list brings relief to FYJC aspirants

MUMBAI: With a varied number of vacant seats in colleges for First Year Junior College (FYJC), the open category cut-offs in the special merit list announced on Wednesday were higher or lower compared to the third list. While, several minority colleges saw a drop as they surrendered vacant quota seats, the cut-offs at non-minority colleges rose.As per a 2018 Bombay HC order, minority institutes can surrender vacant quota seats only after third list admissions are complete. These institutes added nearly 43,000 seats to the pool, bringing relief to students still waiting for admission. In Wednesday's list, 48,664 of the 56,375 pending applicants were allotted a seat.The science cut-off at minority institute, Jai Hind College, Churchgate, went down to 39.2% as the college surrendered 255 seats. Similarly, at KC College, Churchgate, 110 vacant quota seats were surrendered in the arts stream, bringing the cut-off down to 74.4% from 88.6%. HR College, Churchgate, that had no vacancies for general category students in the third list, added 147 quota seats lowering its cut-off to 83% from 91.4%.On the other hand, NM College, Vile Parle, did not surrender any seats. The commerce cut-off jumped from 90% in the third list to 96.2% in the special list.The increasing cut-off trend was seen at non-minority colleges too, such as VG Vaze College, Mulund, where the science cut-off rose to 98.2%.Education department officials said this could be due to different rules of the special merit list. "Even top scorers who were allotted a seat in previous rounds, but did not secure admission, could re-enter. They could have changed their college preference and streams resulting in higher cut-offs at some colleges," said an official. This was the last merit list, the next rounds will be on first-come-first-serve basis starting August 21.