More admissions than seats, history most popular in DU

NEW DELHI: There were more admissions than the number of seats, high cutoffs notwithstanding, on the first day of undergraduate admissions in Delhi University on Thursday. History seems to be the subject of the day. Even otherwise, there were crowds at colleges in both campuses—the sports and ECA trials are also on—but dozens returned without claiming seats as they realized that the 2.5 percentage point penalties are pushing their best-of-four scores way below the cut-offs.Science courses failed to take off in most colleges.
Shri Ram College of Commerce, Miranda House, Lady Shri Ram, Ramjas and Sri Venkateswara had a busy day. At SRCC, 115 students were given admission in BCom (H) of whom 76 are from the general category. Thirty students got admission in economics (H). According to Ashok Sehgal, "It is too early to say anything about the second cutoff. However, going by the numbers—for 252 seats in BCom (H) at 97.38% there are 327 students—BCom (H) is unlikely to have a second list. But the same may not be the case with economics, though students should not expect a significant decrease."
At Miranda House, 20% of the seats were filled up on the first day and, with two more days to go, some courses are definitely going to be missing from the second cutoff list to be issued on June 28. "We got more students in history then our intake capacity. Admissions in sociology and geography have been good, too," said Pratibha Jolly, principal of the college.
At some streams in some colleges—philosophy at Hindu and economics at Kirori Mal College, for instance—the penalty system has resulted in zero general category admissions. "The department initially proposed that the 2.5 percentage point penalty shouldn't be imposed on philosophy as it isn't taught in most schools. But it was argued that there are state boards in which it is taught," says Sumit Nandan, teacher-in-charge of philosophy admissions at Hindu. "Quite a few left because they didn't know about the disadvantage," says student volunteer Kashika Mittal. There is sure to be a second list.
Sociology—also taught in a limited number of schools—had many takers at Hindu. "We are surprised by how many have studied sociology in school," says Vasundhara Bhojvaid of sociology department at Hindu. Despite a cut-off of 95.5% and fewer schools teaching it, they have already over-admitted—32 general category admissions against 19 seats. "By the looks of it, it is very unlikely there'll be a second list." A total of 261 admissions happened in Venkateswara while at Hindu it was 110.
In South Campus, Sri Venkateswara witnessed a good turnout for liberal arts courses, but science has been a damper. So is the case with Miranda House, Hindu and many other colleges. Barring botany, there has been no admission to science courses in Venkateswara. "Science courses are yet to open their account except botany," said P Hemalatha Reddy. This indicates that there will be decrease in the cutoff for science courses in the second list and in some colleges it can be significant. "The engineering counselling just got over. With such high scores these students know where they are headed. Which is why science admission will pick up probably on the second list," said Jolly.
At Ramjas, admission continued till 5pm as the college decided that all those who came to the college by 1pm will be given admission. According to Rajendra Prasad, principal, there were not many takers for economics and maximum admissions happened in political science, zoology and botany.