Admission seekers wanting to enrol in St. Stephen’s College have a reason to be hopeful as the cut-offs for most courses have fallen compared with last year.
The college has finalised the cut-off percentages which will determine which candidates are eligible to appear for interviews, the final stage in the admission procedure of the college . The cut-offs for various courses were announced on Sunday evening.
For Economics (Honours), the cut-off has come down by 0.5 per cent for students with a science background. For those wishing to enrol in Mathematics (Honours), the criteria has reduced by one per cent for science students while it has risen by three per cent for humanities students.
Science students desiring to enrol in English (Honours) have a breather of 1.5 per cent compared with last year, while History (Honours) too has lower cut-offs for science and humanities students by margins of two and three per cent respectively.
The cut-offs in B.A. Programme for science, commerce and humanities students have dropped by two, one and three per cent respectively. The cut-offs for Physics (Honours) remain the same while for Chemistry (Honours) there is a rise of 0.33 per cent.
There is a fall of 1.33 and 2.67 per cent in the cut-offs for B.Sc. Programme with Computer Science and B.Sc. Programme with Chemistry.
The cut-offs have fallen despite the college receiving a record number of applications from students with high marks-particularly for the Honours courses in Economics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics
A total of 29,000 forms were sold while 22,000 were received.
In a statement, the college said the soaring of cut-offs appeared to have been checked and reversed partially owing to the new admission policy according to which there can not be more than 15 per cent difference between the cut-offs for the general and reserved categories.
The new policy does not apply to candidates with disabilities, all of whom would be called for the interview if they meet the minimum eligibility requirements of the university and have submitted valid disability certificates.
The seats in the reserved category which remain vacant will be transferred to the non-Christian general category.
Another factor that is believed to have contributed to sliding down of cut-offs is that a larger number of candidates have been called for interviews, taking into consideration the actual number appearing for interviews in the past few years.
The list of candidates eligible for interviews was put up on the college notice board on Monday. Interviews will commence from Wednesday and continue till June 29.
