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Choose subject over college

Aspirants eyeing an undergraduate seat in Delhi University (DU) must remember not to let societal wave supersede their interests in the choice of the subjects.

Choose subject over college


Ananya Panda

Aspirants eyeing an undergraduate seat in Delhi University (DU) must remember not to let societal wave supersede their interests in the choice of the subjects. As the course they pursue now is essentially going to determine their career years later.

Candidates must remember that more than the college it is the course they should keep in mind while taking admission. A majority of potential students are often seen running after a bunch of campus colleges instead of opting for their desired courses.  The point finds resonance in the suggestions of Deputy Dean of Students’ Welfare at DU Gurpreet Tuteja. “A student should always go for a subject of his or her interest rather than the college because they have to study the same subject later. No one is going to ask about the college,” says Tuteja.

The North Campus and some colleges on the South Campus attract a large chunk of aspirants, maintains the varsity administration. It is the high footfall primarily that results in skyrocketing cut offs way higher than the off campus colleges where the crowd is less.

How merit lists are prepared

“Once the online application process gets over the Admission Committee of the university will send the executive summary to the colleges and based on it the individual colleges, except St Stephen’s and Jesus and Mary, will announce their cut offs, which is going to remain very high for campus colleges,” says Prof Maharaj K Pandit, Head of the Admission Committee of DU.

Basically the varsity computes the course-wise data of applicants specifying the number of students from the total pool falling under a particular percentage bracket, for instance 95-100 percentage on the basis of “best four” subjects. This gives a fair idea of the number of candidates who are likely to go for the available courses thus helping the colleges to prepare their merit list.

Among the six minority colleges, the St Stephen’s and Jesus and Mary have an admission process different from that of the rest of the DU colleges, whereas Mata Sundari College for Women, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College and Sri Gobind Singh College of Commerce rely on the central pool and data thereof for its non-quota 50 per cent UG seats.

Taking a college call

Nevertheless, the past trends can be a guide for potential students to take a call on the best college for their desired course. For English Honours the most popular colleges being Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR), Jesus and Mary College (JMC), Hansraj College, Miranda House, Kirori Mal College (KM), Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (SBS) and Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College (SGTB), while economics another most preferred subject, is up for grabs in Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Ramjas, LSR, JMC, KM, SBS, SGTB and Miranda House.  

For political science (Honours), LSR, Miranda, JMC, SBS, SGTB are among the favourites for history. Similarly, geography makes it to the desired list when it comes to colleges, like Miranda House, KMC, Kamla Nehru College, JMC and SBS, etc, while psychology and sociology are the top few subjects opted for by students in LSR and JMC.

Students keen for BCom go for SRCC, Hindu, Hansraj and Miranda House, whereas in science discipline Sri Venketeswara College, Gargi College, Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Science of Women, Acharya Narendra Dev College, Hindu College, Hansraj College, Indraprastha College for Women, Bhagini Nivedita College, Bhaskaracharya College of  Applied Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Maharaja Agrasen College, Lady Irwin College, Kalindi College and LSR, among others.

Demystifying the concept of popular courses

Among the undergraduate programmes, English and Commerce are tagged as the most popular courses on offer at the DU. 

However, university officials claim that the popularity of a course cannot be judged by the number of studentsapplying for it, which in turn is based on the eligibility criteria. What is important is that before applying for any course a student should realise and assess his own strengths, inclination and fields that he/she wants to take up in life.

For instance, English is a subject for which a majority of candidates can apply due to which the number applications received for this subject  is pretty high as compared to others.  Same is the case with Hindi language as a large chunk having studied it at Class XII level is eligible for it and those having mathematics opt for BSc with maths (Hons) or statistics (Hons), but one cannot surmise that these are most the sought after programmes in the Science stream.

“Applications received are linked to eligibility criteria and cannot tell us about the popularity of a course. We receive more number of applications for BA English (Hons) than other courses. In science even maths sees more forms than physics (Hons) and the graph goes up for BCom.  Statistics show that BCom (Hons) is not popular when compared with BCom programme which is actually contrary to majority students’ choice. This is due to the condition of maths as a compulsory subject in Class XII,” says Tuteja.

Also, unlike the common notion, Economics (Hons) is far more popular than BCom (Hons) among a list of close to 60 courses, including 25 in humanities, 15 under sciences, 4 in mathematical sciences, BCom and BCom (Hons) and 9 entrance–based courses, offered by the DU.  It is believed that students who have a logical mind will opt for the former while those with heuristic inclination will most likely go for the latter.

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