Applicants use NIRF rankings as a guide to choose colleges

Order returns on Day 2 of admissions at Delhi University

After a chaotic first day, at the end of which several students returned home without taking admission, order returned at Delhi University (DU) on Wednesday with students showing up with correct documents, and colleges better equipped to handle the rush on the second day of admissions.

Anxious students and parents, however, were seen across campus taking advice from whoever they could find.

Choosing colleges

Earlier, DU used to say that every college was at par and that students should give priority to the course that they wanted to pursue rather than the college.

However, over the past two year with the introduction of the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF), there is a clear distinction between colleges and those who are visiting campus for the first time are using it as a reference to pick a college.

“During my time, the reputation of a college was all that mattered. There was no way to say which college out of the 60 constituent colleges of DU was better. But now, we have the NIRF survey to go by as well as the National Academic and Assessment Council (NAAC) grades,” said Abhilasha Pandit, a DU alumni who is helping her daughter in the admission process.

Nine colleges of DU are in the all-India top 15 colleges as ranked by the NIRF survey. They are not restricted to North Campus colleges either, busting the myth that North Campus colleges had an edge over off-campus colleges.

“Most of these college are just names, there is no way to interact with the faculty before taking admission so the ranking system has been helpful in making a choice,” said Himanshi Gupta, an aspirant looking at an off-campus college.

Kiosks set up

To help students navigate the chaos and find colleges, kiosks have been set up by various student organisations as well as non-affiliated student volunteers at each college.

While volunteers from student organisations hope that if they guide a fresher through their admission process, they may vote for them in the upcoming student union elections, some student volunteers are there to pass a favour forward, remembering their own admission experience.

Several applicants who are not from Delhi have been taking the help of volunteers on campus to navigate the admission process.

This year, some of the colleges have a QR code next to them on the college prospectus and students can scan the code and find the location of the college with the help of Google Maps.

The last day to take admission through the first list is June 21.

The second list will be released on June 25.