Expect higher cut-offs this year, say colleges

NEW DELHI: St Stephen's College released its cut-off list on Friday. On an average, the cut-off mark in all subjects is higher by 1-2% as compared to last year. For B Com (hons) and Economics (hons) the cut-off is 97% for commerce students (2% higher than last year). For English, the cut-off is 97% (for commerce), 93% (for science) and 87% for humanities students.Students who clear the cut-offs are expected to sit for an interview and those selected will be admitted.
Other colleges too predict a similar rise of 1-2% in cut-offs of most subjects. A 1-2%, note principals, is a moderate increase and is expected every year. And though there may have been an astonishingly-high number of 90 percentages scored this time, poor scores in English have pulled down the general result.
Kirori Mal College (KMC) principal Bhim Sen Singh, who, predicts a rise of 1-2% in all subject cut-offs, says that this is a moderate rise. "This is not an extraordinary increase since this time, despite very high marks, the poor scores in English have pulled down the average result.
In fact, he has already been inundated by requests from parents asking him to consider the best-of-four, excluding the English score. "Students have got 96, 95 as their best-of-four and with marks in the range of 65-69 in English, their result has come down drastically," he said.
Sri Venkateswara College admission convener R P Singh makes the same point. "The English marks are not good this year - particularly for students in humanities and commerce where English is supposed to be an integral subject of these streams. This is however, just an estimate - we are yet to see the whole list," he said. Here, cut-offs for most subjects like English, maths, biochemistry, will rise by one per cent and those for economics and B Com are expected to rise by 2%.
In Hindu College, cut-offs for subjects such as B Com (hons) and Economics (hons), for which there is great demand, are estimated to be around 93-94%. This however, is a slightly inflated version, since it indicates the first list and is expected to come down by a percent. "In the first list last year, we had a cut-off of 92% and this is expected to rise to 93.5-94%. The cut-off will decrease in the subsequent lists," said Anil Kumar, Vice Principal, Hindu College.
Said Hansraj College principal S R Arora: "In subjects such as English, history, sciences, the cut-offs will rise by 1-2%. In subjects like commerce, economics and maths we will expect a rise of 0.5-1%. This is simply because the number of 85-90 percenters are higher as compared to 90 percenters and we are already demanding very high marks for the latter category."