Delhi University (DU) has announced changes in its undergraduate admission process of 2014-15. Admissions will start from June 2 and the University is expecting over 3 lakh applications for a total of 54,000 undergraduate seats this year. The University has done away with the previous process of listing colleges in its centralised admission forms and the forms will focus only on the courses students wish to pursue and not the colleges, thereby allowing them to be eligible for admissions to as many colleges as possible depending on the cut-offs. Delhi University Admissions will start from June 2 and the University is expecting over 3 lakh applications for a total of 54,000 undergraduate seats this year. DU commenced open day sessions to address queries of students and parents regarding undergraduate admissions today. The sessions began with over 2000 students and parents in attendance and will continue till 30th May. “For the benefit of students it was considered that we should not restrict ourselves to colleges. Students think they will be able to meet the cut-offs and then apply in two to three colleges. We can’t predict cut-offs and when they are high, they come to us and we cannot help them. We will have more problems now in terms of data processing, but we feel this will benefit students,” said professor JM Khurana, dean of students’ welfare. “The university received several complaints from students with high marks being denied admissions in the earlier process, since they had opted for limited colleges,” added Malay Neerav, DU’s joint dean of students’ welfare and media coordinator. The number of courses included in this year’s admission forms have increased from 34 to 40, and the University has done away with entrance tests for English honours, Hindi journalism, Social Work, and foreign languages like German, Spanish, Italian and French. For their one year old Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) course, there will be no interviews this year unlike last year. “Last year, the weightage for interviews was 20% in the BMS course, this year its 50% merit and 50% entrance. We have made sure that colleges will not have any additional eligibility criteria for admissions so that students are not put to a disadvantage.,” said Khurana. Though students applying in the sports and extra-curricular quota will still have to contact respective colleges for admissions. The admission process would also continue to be separate for St Stephens and Jesus & Mary College. Some of the colleges will give concessions to women students and Khurana stated that the University will upload details of the concerned colleges before the admission process. The University will release ten cut-off lists on 24thJune, 27th June, 1st July, 4th July, 8th July, 11th July, 14th July, 16th July, 18th July, and 21st July respectively. “We have a week between 16th, the last date of submission of firms, and 24th which will give sufficient time to colleges to analyse and upload the data on their websites,” Neerav added. Source: EDUCATIONS NEWS