Applications at DU soar during uncertain times

NEW DELHI: The registration process for admissions to various undergraduate, postgraduate, M Phil/PhD courses at Delhi University ended on Monday with 353,153 applications — the highest ever — for around 70,000 undergraduate seats, the in-charge of DU’s admission data said.

Sanjeev Singh, head of DU’s Computer Centre, said this is the highest-ever applications received by the university. In 2019, 258,388 students had applied while 278, 544 applications were received in 2018.

According to data provided by the university, for postgraduate courses, over 146,996 applications were received while for MPhil/PhD courses, 21,699 applications had been submitted till Monday evening.

The highest number of applicants are from Delhi (142,526), followed by Uttar Pradesh (66,657), Haryana (50,701), Bihar (21,151), and Rajasthan (14,485).

Of the 353,153 applicants, as many as 285,128 are from CBSE affiliated schools.

Gender-wise, 181,484 males applied this year compared to 171,681 females. Six candidates are for the ‘Other category’.

Under sports category, maximum number of applicants selected football (1,627), athletics (1,621), basketball (1,420), and cricket (1,092). For extra-curricular activities (ECA) category, NCC (3,876) and NSS (1,796) topped the list.

Though registrations have now been closed, students will be allowed to upload their documents such as marksheets and certificates on the DU portal in the second or third week of September. As per the university’s admission branch, the cut-offs might be declared by the first week of October.

The registration portal was open between June 20 and July 31. While registrations for entrance-based courses closed on July 31, DU had extended the deadline for admissions to merit-based courses till August 31.

Dean (Admissions) Shobha Bagai said a number of factors could have led to a sharp increase in the number of applications. “This time the registration portal was open for ten weeks instead of the usual three weeks. Additionally, the process was initiated before several other universities and students must have applied to ensure their academic year,” she said.

Bagai also said that lack of clarity over entrance exams such as JEE, NEET, or Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) could have also prompted students to apply at DU to “keep their options open”.

“Due to the uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic, more students must have applied, leading to an increase in the number of applications. Besides, many students who had planned to go outside India might have changed their mind and applied at DU. But these are speculative reasons and a proper analysis needs to be done to explain the increase in the number of applications,” she said.