Mount Carmel College (Autonomous) (MCC) has received hundreds of applications from boys after the college announced earlier this year that their undergraduate courses would be open even for them from this academic year. Until now, MCC was an all-girls college for around 70 years.
The college management said that the decision to go co-ed was made to align with the institution’s plans and ensure greater diversity on campus. The admission process is now underway for first-year degree courses. While this is the first time undergraduate courses are going co-ed, a couple of postgraduate courses at MCC have been co-ed since 2016.
“The response (from boys) has been excellent ever since II PUC results were announced. We have also been processing applications online. However, we have limited the number of boys we are taking. In each class, boys would make up 15-20% of the strength,” said Regina L. Sugandhi, Registrar of Admissions, MCC.
She said that while currently the ratio of girls to boys for applications is 4:1, in the coming years, the college has plans to accommodate more boys. “We have also kept slightly higher cut-offs for boys. But even then, we had to send certain students back as the seats were filled up,” she added.
While many boys were keen to get admission at MCC because of its reputation, some of them reported that they changed their minds after realising that there would only be a few boys on campus.
Ashwatha Narayan M., a Salem, Tamil Nadu resident, had applied for a BA in Political Science and Sociology at MCC along with other colleges. “My mother and relatives said that MCC is a reputed college, so I applied there. After cracking the admission process, when I went through the website, I got to know that the institution is turning co-ed for the first time and the male-female ratio is uneven and that is why I dropped my plan to join there,” he said.
While admissions for BCA, BBA, and other commerce courses are almost completed for both boys and girls, the college expects to see more applicants for the science stream once the CET results are out. Ms. Sugandhi added that the overall response for admissions had been good this year, and the decision to adopt coeducation had not deterred girls from applying for undergraduate courses.
