HT GUIDE TO ADMISSIONS

School of Open Learning is often an option for low scorers who may not have performed well enough in the 12th grade to meet the high cutoffs at some Delhi University colleges.

But there are many who themselves opt for SOL as they want more free time to engage in other activities, including exploring career options at the undergraduate level.

The SOL admits around 1.5 lakh students in undergraduate courses every year and offers BA, B.Com, BA (honors) Political Science, B.Com (honors) and BA (honors) English. The BA programme is one of the most popular choices. It is considered a good option for students who are unable to make it to regular colleges due to high cutoffs.

A student can pursue a BCom (Hons) at SOL as long as he or she has secured 60% or more in the 12th grade exams. For BA (Hons) English, one needs to have secured at least 65% in the 12th grade, with at least 75% in English.

Else, the student must have an aggregate of at least 65% in elective English and three other academic subjects.

To pursue a BA (Hons) in Political Science, the best of four score must be at least 50% , where one subject is a language. For the BCom and BA programmes, the minimum eligibility is at least 40% in the qualifying exams.

Aditika Mahajan, a final-year BA programme student at SOL, had to opt for the institute as she did not have the grades for other DU colleges. “I had scored 58-59% in my 12th grade. I knew the cutoffs for DU colleges are very high so I did not even try,” she said.

Students who want to work or pursue professional courses while doing an undergraduate course apply to the SOL despite having good grades.

SOL director CS Dubey said out of the 1,45,000 students that registered last year, more than half (55%) had scored above 60 percent, and some 10,000 odd students had scored more than 80 percent in the 12th grade. “We had 1,500 students who had scored above 90 percent, and one student who had scored a perfect 100 percent last year,” said Dubey.

As the correspondence course has only 20 contact classes every year, and attendance is not mandatory, this frees up time for students to pursue other goals.

Dubey said SOL is not just an option for the low scorers anymore. “Times have changed now. Students have realised that SOL or regular colleges, they will still get a DU degree. So students enrol for correspondence courses as this opens up their time to acquire more skills that may be needed for the job market. Some students work while being enrolled in SOL while some others are enrolled in other coaching classes or are preparing for competitive exams,” he explained.

Nikki (who goes by her first name), another BA programme final-year student at SOL, said she opted for the programme as she was preparing for a career in Delhi Police. Her batchmate, Priyanka Gupta, wanted time to do extra electronics courses.

Students like Prathyumn Narbar, a pole vaulter, have even withdrawn from regular colleges to enrol in SOL to find time to train. “He is an athlete and needs to keep going abroad for his training. He was in Khalsa College but after training for 7-8 hours everyday, it is difficult to sit through classes as well,” said his sister Tulika Narbar. 220

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The college has a career counseling and placement cell which arranges the visit of companies/ business organisations to recruit students The annual student’s union festival, Aadab, is one of the most popular events hosted by the institution.

The Zakir Husain Memorial Football Tournament is an important event in the college calendar. The college has adequate facility for both indoor and outdoor sports activities.

It was one of the first colleges to have online access of internal assessment and attendance records for students and faculty. It has a well equipped multi-media library.

Offers wholesome

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SC/ST: 22.5%, OBC: 27%, sports/ECA: 4%.

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The cell serves as a medium of interaction between students and the corporate world. A large number of the students have been recruited by various reputed companies.

An inter college festival, Sabranng is held annually in February-March

The college has sent players in kabaddi weight lifting, football, shooting, wrestling and cricket to various national and international events.

The campus is WiFi enabled. Recently, it has added 70 more computers to its lab and other facilities

The canteen provides different types of snacks