Why has Delhi University allowed some colleges to admit students based on Class 12 marks? | Explained

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The Delhi University said that over 13,300 of the approximately 71,600 undergraduate seats across its affiliated colleges remain vacant after multiple rounds of admissions. File | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The story so far: Admissions to undergraduate courses in the University of Delhi have, for the second year in a row, entered a mop-up round, in which some colleges were permitted to admit students based on their Class 12 Board exam results instead of their Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores.

The university said that over 13,300 of the approximately 71,600 undergraduate seats across its affiliated colleges remain vacant after multiple rounds of admissions. These admissions were conducted on the basis of candidates’ CUET scores and their course and college preferences.

While some of the vacant seats, especially those in reputable colleges on the North Campus, will be filled in a spot admission round on the university’s Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) portal based on CUET scores, several other colleges, mostly those located off campus, have been given permission to admit students based on their Class 12 marks.

Until 2022, the university’s undergraduate admissions were conducted almost entirely based on Class 12 exam results. Each college would publish its individual cut-offs for different courses, and candidates whose Class 12 marks were above these cut-offs would be eligible to take admission.

This system, however, led to ever-increasing cut-offs, with many colleges seeking well over 90% marks for their most-sought-after courses, and some even demanding 99% to 100%. This also led to criticism that different school Boards, such as the Central Board of Secondary Education, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, and the various State Boards, applied different standards for awarding marks in their exams and that this made the university’s cut-off system biased in favour of students whose Boards were more liberal in handing out marks.

In 2022, the University Grants Commission (UGC) made it mandatory for all Central universities to adopt CUET, a centralised entrance test, as the basis for admissions. The UGC said this would be a standardised method that eliminates the disparities between different school Boards and creates an equal field for all candidates.

Those writing CUET can mark their choices for the course and college they want in order of preference. This creates thousands of unique course-college combinations, and there will be some combinations, such as ones that comprise little-known colleges and not-so-sought-after courses, which will have few takers. This means that among the CUET candidates registered under the CSAS portal, there may not be enough who have chosen particular college-course combinations to fill those seats.

To ensure that such seats do not remain vacant, the UGC in 2024 released a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs), including allowing universities to conduct their own entrance tests, to fill the vacant seats.